Heroes of Future Past
by Random Equinox
Summary: Ever since Shepard was a child, something has haunted him. A horrible incident from his past that marked him. A burning question that was never answered. A mystery that was never solved. Now, during the war to end all wars, he might finally discover the truth.
1. Vita Brevis

**Heroes of Future Past**

 _ **Author's Note**_ _:_

 _This fanfic is something I've wanted to write for a long time now. Originally, I envisioned it as a one-shot. As I began to put my thoughts on (virtual) paper, however, I realized that the themes and subjects involved would best be served by splitting the story into two parts. I'm delighted to finally share the first of those chapters with you._

 _Astute readers will recognize certain characters and plot arcs from the TV show Chuck. Please consider this your 'here there be spoilers' warning, along with the disclaimer that I claim no ownership of any of the characters from Chuck or Mass Effect._

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Vita Brevis**

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Or so some bigwig said at some point. There have been studies to point to the nutrients and vitamins you get, how important it is to your physical and mental growth and wellbeing, and so on and so forth. Of course, there are also studies that say its benefits may have been overstated.

All I know is breakfast is important because you never know for sure how long it'll be until your next meal and it's really hard to get the drop on someone when your stomach's trumpeting your approach like some delusional herald.

I went for a light meal today. Toast—two slices—with jam. Three slices of ham. The last of the fruit salad—note to self: gotta make a trip to the Citadel soon for resupply. Skipped the eggs since I had it four days in a row. Skipped the bacon because it looked like burnt strips of rubber swimming in fat. And I skipped the pancakes because… well… because I just couldn't eat them.

As I sat down and began eating, I mentally reviewed today's itinerary. Didn't take me long. We were still at war with the Reapers. We were still at war with Cerberus. I'd recruited most of the major races, governments, organizations and factions at this point—and any progress with the other groups was in the early stages, so my participation wouldn't really make a difference.

That left us to our own devices. We had one planet to check out today. After that, we could focus on maintenance duties. Boring stuff, I know, but we'd been putting it off for one reason or another—said reasons usually involving near-certain death. And considering how essential some of those maintenance tasks were to the safe and efficient running of the Normandy, we really should tackle them at some point.

When I was done, I returned my tray and utensils and left the mess hall. On my way out, I saw the pancakes again. Banana nut, in case you were wondering. Butter and maple syrup on the side, the latter from Kaidan's personal stash. I was really tempted, let me tell you. But in the end, I left the mess hall.

It had been twenty years and I still couldn't eat pancakes.

* * *

We'd arrived by the time I reached the CIC. Stepping up to the galaxy map, I turned it on and watched as the planet of interest loomed before me: Ilos. A quiet little world in the middle of nowhere. Uninhabited. Unassuming. And yet, for me, it held so much significance and meaning.

Ilos was where we went to after liberating the Normandy—because 'stealing' is such a harsh word—and breaking out from the Citadel. Ilos was where we tracked Saren to, having chased him from Therum to Feros to Noveria and a couple dozen worlds in between. Ilos was where we got the last piece of the puzzle about the fate of the Protheans and the intentions of the Reapers—thus hammering home just how royally screwed we were. Just in case we hadn't been paying attention up until this point, you see.

I hadn't been back to Ilos in years, not since that fateful day. Didn't have a lot of time, what with getting spaced, burning up in atmo, being resurrected as a cybernetic ninja zombie, investigating a rash of human abductions, stopping the Collectors, turning myself in after thwarting the Reapers at a horrible cost and trying to win a war against the Reapers when they finally invaded our galaxy. Not to mention falling in love—I mean, who saw _that_ coming?

So why was I heading to Ilos? It wasn't because I was bored, I can tell you that. And I wasn't running for dear life, even if I should have been. No, I was responding to a rather cryptic e-mail:

 _From: ORION  
Subject: None_

 _ILOS_

So we popped out of the mass relay in the Refuge system, parked ourselves in Ilos' orbit and scanned the system. Nothing. I tried again. Still nothing.

" _Commander?"_ EDI's voice came over the comm. _"Is it necessary—or wise—to scan this system again?"_

She had a point. We'd learned the hard way that Reapers were attracted to sensor sweeps like sharks to blood. That's why Miranda—with some helps from Adams and the engineering crew—had upgraded the sensors such that a single pulse could pick up every item of interest within a given system.

Except this one, it seemed.

So what should I do? It's not like there was an SOP for this sort of thing. Should I scan the system a third time and risk drawing the Reapers to us? I wait around and see what happens? Or should I give up on the basis that even reliable sources like Orion could be wrong once in a while?

"Let's do one more scan," I decided.

EDI obliged. And that did the trick. A 'bing' rang through the air before she announced _"We have something."_

She was right. An anomalous energy spike from an area that had only been giving off background radiation emissions a few minutes ago.

Well… it seemed I had my answer.

* * *

"So… who's Orion?" James wanted to know.

The squad and I were in the shuttle, flying into the atmosphere of Ilos. It was a rather overcast day. The sun was trying valiantly to poke through, but all the sunbeams did was light up the clouds around us. Might've presented a pretty picture if I didn't have so much on my mind.

"It's a human constellation as viewed from Earth," Kaidan offered.

"No, Orion is… a man," I began. "Maybe. Could be a woman, but most of the anecdotal evidence suggests he's a man. Might be human—jury's out on that one. No one really knows. There are a lot of unknowns where Orion's concerned."

"What _do_ we know?" Tali asked, before I really went off-track.

"I've come across Orion before," Liara said quietly while I was finding my brain-to-mouth filter. "Supposedly, he—assuming Orion's male—worked on several top-secret projects for the Alliance. At some point, they must have had a falling out, because he disappeared. Completely fell off the grid. Numerous intelligence agencies, including Alliance Intelligence have tried to find Orion ever since."

"Cerberus was very interested in Orion as well," Miranda added. "The Illusive Man sent what was, at the time, his fastest corvette and best wetwork team to extract him.

"And?" Javik prompted.

"Forensic analysis suggests a computer virus was somehow downloaded into the ship's mainframe, despite the numerous firewalls in place. It triggered an overload in the eezo core. There were no survivors. The Illusive Man was… irked."

"I've gotten one or two e-mails from Orion in the past," I admitted. "The coordinates they provided led to a lot of stuff that's been helping us out with the Crucible Project or the war in general."

"So _that's_ why you kept telling Joker to fly all over the galaxy," James laughed.

"There was a method to my madness," I agreed lightly.

Garrus kept his mouth shut. Didn't even look at me. For which I was grateful. He was with me on Omega when we ran into a certain debonair super-spy. Turned out Orion had sent him my way to assuage Alliance Intelligence's concerns that I had gone rogue and thwart any attempts to silence me… permanently. And it seemed that Orion had also worked with Bryce Larkin to send me to Elysium, thereby raising my profile to such a public height that Alliance Intelligence couldn't recruit me for one of their dirtiest and blackest of spec-ops teams. Of course, it did mean I had to live the rest of my life knowing there was a God-awful statue looming over the denizens of Elysium, but you can't have everything.

At that point, the shuttle flew out of the clouds and we could see the land below. The rich verdant fields, blooming with life.

And the ruins.

"Wait a second," Garrus frowned.

"Is that…" Tali trailed off.

"I don't believe it," Kaidan murmured.

"Goddess," Liara whispered.

"Analysis of your facial response suggest you recognize this location," EDI observed.

"This is the site that held the hidden Prothean base," I admitted. "Everyone was already dead," I said to Javik apologetically, "but we did get to meet the VI, Vigil, while it still had power. More importantly, this was where the Conduit was located."

"The secret backdoor to the Citadel," James recalled. "The one that Saren guy was after."

"Exactly," I nodded.

"Did this Orion say what was so important?" Javik asked.

"Nope. But there's usually a reason."

"ETA: two minutes," Cortez called out from the cockpit.

That was our cue to do any last-minute checks as we began our approach to the landing zone. The last time I was here, Joker had to drop us off in the Mako, and there were only so many suitable sites to choose from. It was only Joker's piloting skill that got us as close as we did, otherwise we would've had a far greater distance to travel. On top of that, we were trying to stop Saren before he could enact the Reapers' invasion plan, so there was a bit of pressure on us.

This time, we could pick and choose where we landed and weren't in as much of a rush. So while we still took certain basic precautions in leaving the Kodiak and clearing the LZ, we could afford to take in the view. A wildfire had recently swept through here, judging by the charred and blackened flora around us. But we could still see plenty of vines criss-crossing everywhere, wrapping around the various ruins and stretching up to the rust-coloured sky.

More importantly, I could actually step back and allow myself to soak in the view. There was never that kind of luxury last time, what with chasing after Saren, being thwarted by a closing door, then frantically running here and there to set up a workaround while dealing with hostile geth. This time, I could enjoy the sights for a brief moment. It wasn't as awe-inspiring as the ziggurats on Tuchanka or the various nebulae I'd had the privilege of cruising through, but there was a certain… I dunno… a quiet beauty to the place. And we were the first ones here in years, which added an unspoiled, pristine element to it all.

"It was said that the inusannon once lived here," Javik recalled, "before my people discovered this world and established a colony for the Empire. I never thought I would step foot on this world."

Too busy fighting Reaper forces and dishing out insults, perhaps? Well, okay, seriously now. To spend all this time wondering about a place you never thought you'd see again. Ever. What would it be like, to finally see it? What would you do? I didn't know what Ilos was to Javik; whether it was something mysterious like Area 51, somewhere historical like the Pyramids of Egypt or something mystical like Shangri-La. But clearly it meant something to Javik, judging by the look on his face. I think we all saw that.

"Okay," I said at last, "we need to start a search. "Team One will head for the target coordinates. Team Two, secure the area. Team Three…" I took another look at Javik. "Team Three guards the shuttle—for now. If we get into trouble, though, come running."

"Keep your comm channel open," Garrus nodded.

* * *

" _Shepard, come in,"_ Garrus said _. "What's your sitrep?"_

"Still walking down the tunnel we drove through in the Mako all those years ago," I replied.

" _You do realize it was just three years ago,"_ Miranda reminded me.

"Hey, it was a lifetime for me," I retorted. "Literally."

"I don't remember it being this dark," Liara murmured.

She was right. The last time we came here, the tunnel was lit up. Not just by the Mako's headlights, but also by the lights set in the tunnel itself. Now, though, there was no power in here. At all. The only reason we weren't tripping over each other was the wan rays of light shining through the cracks in the building and the low-light enhancement function in our helmets. All that appreciation about being the first ones here was replaced by a mild sense of dread. I mean, this was where a group of Protheans died—those that didn't take the Conduit on a one-way journey to the Citadel, that is. For all its beauty, that made this place a tomb. And when you were crawling around in the dark, well…

" _Can you see anything at all?"_ Miranda asked before I got the heebie-jeebies.

"Not much. Just bare rock and vines all around us."

" _Figures."_

"Meaning?"

" _You take me to the nicest places."_

"Oh come on," I scoffed. "Look at all the architecture of all these ancient ruins."

" _Emphasis on ruins. As in falling apart."_

"And nature in every direction, blooming in all its glory."

" _You're underground. The only nature I see are all these ugly vines. And fresh air is overrated."_

"I can't take you anywhere, can I? No matter how nice it is, you always seem to think it could be just a little bit better."

" _What can I say? I'm hard to please."_

"I'll say."

" _Are you two done yet?"_ Garrus broke in.

"Yes."

" _Very well."_

" _Thank God,"_ James muttered.

Spoilsports.

We did continue in silence, though not to spare any squadmates from the banter. Orion had never mentioned what was down here. If it was hostile, then there was no sense alerting it to our presence by yakking away. There was no telling how far the acoustics in this tunnel could carry a conversation, after all.

Turned out it wasn't a hostile.

He was waiting around the next bend, dressed in a well-worn civvie jumpsuit. With an effort, he squared his shoulders and straightened himself from a slight hunch. His hair, mostly silver-grey with a smattering of brown peppered through, was long, brushing the top of his eyebrows and ears and stretching about halfway down his neck. Keen eyes pierced at me over a large, hawk-like nose. "Hello, Charles," he said.

I stared at him for a long time. Finally I found my voice.

"Dad?"

* * *

If you asked me what happened after that, I honestly couldn't say for certain.

I had a vague recollection of taking Dad back to the shuttle and, from there, back to the Normandy. Most of the squad followed. Hopefully I made the obligatory introductions. Liara stayed behind to finally indulge in the archaeological exploration she never got to do all those years ago. Javik also wanted to explore. Cortez probably said something about coming back to pick them up. I'm not sure.

Dad and I wound up in sickbay. Probably my idea but, again, I'm not sure. Dr. Chakwas ran some scans, drew some samples and did some medical stuff. While she did that, I just… stared at him. He looked like, well, Dad. More grey hair—way, _way_ more grey hair. More wrinkles. But it certainly looked like him.

After an interminable period of time, Dr. Chakwas stood up. "Well, preliminary results indicate you're in good shape for a man of your age, Mr. Shepard. I think I'll step outside for a cup of tea while the remaining tests finish. Excuse me."

She stepped outside. The doors closed, leaving just the two of us. And I had no idea what to say.

Dad broke the silence first. "So… it's been a while, huh?"

That was one way of putting it.

"You're looking good, Charles."

Really? How would he know?

"You're a commander. That's… that's great."

Not really.

"I'm really proud of you."

How I'd waited for years to hear that.

"I… I know it's been a while."

He already said that.

"You probably have questions. A lot of questions."

Yeah, actually. I did.

"Charles, please. Just… say something. Anything."

"Pancakes," I said softly.

His face dropped. "Hoo boy."

Turned out I had something on my plate that was more important than any burning question. "You said you would make me pancakes. But then you left. You just… left. And I was alone. For twenty years. Twenty years of wondering if it was something I said. Twenty years of wondering what did I do? Twenty years of thinking it was all _my fault_."

Those last words were spoken as if they'd been torn out of my throat, raw with two decades of pain and anguish. "Did you have any idea what that would do to me?" I continued. "Did you even care? Or were you too busy going off on another job to think of that? Too busy wandering off on another grand adventure that was more important than your own son?

His eyes were starting to tear up. I think. It was hard to say, you see. Things were starting to get a little blurry for me too.

"You say I look good. That it's great I made it into the military and worked my way up to the rank of commander. But it could have been different. I could have become an alcoholic and drank life away until my liver gave out. Or an addict hooked on red sand. Or maybe just slit my wrists and bledout. It might have been the easy way out, but it would have been less painful too."

"Charles, I..." Tears were streaming down Dad's face now. "I'm…"

"You're what?" I spat. "Sorry? It's too late for that. You're about twenty years too late."

I stormed out of the sickbay, making sure to activate my cloak as I passed through the doors.

No one should see their commanding officer cry.

* * *

Miranda found me in my quarters. I'd locked the doors but, well, Miranda had her ways. No doubt one of them starting with 'E' and ending with 'I.' "How are you holding up?" she asked softly.

"Well, I finally talked to my dad after two decades," I tried. "If by 'talked,' you mean 'threw a whole bunch of unresolved issues in his face and ran out the door."

"Probably better than any reunion with _my_ father," she offered in return. "Gunfire would likely be involved."

"You might have a point," I allowed, "but I think I did just as much damage. I don't know. I… I wanted to know where he's been. What he's been up to. But when Dr. Chakwas gave us some space and we were alone, I… I just got so _angry_. All this pent-up rage over the hell he's put me through."

"You have every right to be angry," Miranda said. "If nothing else, I sometimes think you should be angrier. As for his whereabouts and activities, I can't speak for him. Nor would I want to. But Dr. Chakwas did uncover some… anomalies in his test results that I thought you should be made aware of."

"Oh?"

Miranda activated her omni-tool and pulled up—"Are those Dad's medical records?" I blurted out. "Because if it is, doesn't that violate patient confidentiality or something?"

"Well…" Miranda hesitated. "Yes. Yes, I suppose it does."

If Dr. Chakwas found out, Miranda would be in a boatload of trouble. I might get some flak too, come to think of it. "This better be worth it," I sighed. "What's wrong with Dad?"

"At first glance, a lot," she began. "Visual acuity, blood pressure, bone density, triglyceride levels, renal function, liver function… they're all outside the norm for a man of his supposed age."

"'Supposed age'?" I repeated. "Is there a reason to question his age?"

"His telomeres," Miranda replied. "Telomeres are portions of repetitive nucleotide sequences found at the ends of your chromosomes. Their role is to prevent chromosome deterioration or fusion with adjacent chromosomes. However, during each chromosome replication, the enzymes responsible for DNA duplication cannot continue said duplication to completion, resulting in slightly shortened chromosome ends. Therefore, barring some mutation that bypasses the usual mechanisms and lengthens them, telomeres can, in some instances, be used as a measurement of age. Assuming certain accompanying tests and calculations are performed, of course."

Of course.

"Granted, they're hardly a standard means of measuring age. But the telomere degradation suggests he's at least eight or nine years older than he should be, at least according to his official date of birth."

"And we're sure he's my dad?"

"Other than the anomaly with his telomeres, the genetic tests confirm he's your father."

"How… how is that possible?" I managed, after staring blankly at her for far too long.

"I don't know. But I do know one way to find out."

There must have been something in my expression—or maybe she just wanted to offer some sympathy—because she reached out and held my hand. "I am aware that your father was a… a unique man. He was absent for long periods of time even before his disappearance. And, by all accounts, he was rather eccentric."

That was an understatement, if ever I heard one.

"But after all this time," she continued, "you've found him again. Maybe he'll have some explanations for where he's been. Maybe he won't have any acceptable excuses. But at least you'll be able to move on. Trust me: having unresolved issues where your father is concerned can have a deleterious effect on one's wellbeing."

She was right, of course—though only Miranda would use 'deleterious' to get her point across.

"What do you say, Shepard? Are you ready to see your father again?"

I looked at her sharply. "He's outside, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"And if I wasn't ready to talk to him?"

"Then I'd tell him to leave you alone and try again later."

"Huh."

"Well?"

"All right," I said at last. "Send him in."

* * *

Miranda got up, opened the door and stepped aside as Dad shuffled in. She gave me a reassuring nod before giving the two of us some privacy. "So…" I tried.

"So…"

…

…

Someone had to break the ice. "I… I guess I owe you… I didn't mean to snap—"

"Yes, you did," he interrupted firmly. "You meant every word you said. 'Cuz you were mad. And you had every right to be." He shook his head in self-recrimination. "I didn't make you pancakes. I wasn't there to see you graduate from high school. To see you enlist. To see you earn your first command. To be there when you needed a father. I wasn't there when I should've been, and you have every right to be angry."

I was surprised how badly I needed to hear that. It wasn't just me, throwing a temper tantrum like a child who didn't get his way. I wasn't being selfish. My grievances were warranted after all, and they had just been acknowledged.

"But I'd like to tell you why I did what I did. If you're up to it."

"Yeah," I said slowly. "Yeah, I think I am."

We went over to the sofa in my quarters and sat down. I waited while Dad gathered his thoughts.

"It's funny," he finally said. "All this time, I've been thinking about what I'd say, and now that I finally have the chance… I'm not sure where to start."

"You could start by explaining why you had to vanish instead of making pancakes," I suggested.

"Right. Right, that makes sense. Um, okay. Wait, no: is anyone listening in on us?"

Good ol' paranoid Dad. Still hadn't changed a great deal. But maybe he had a point. If nothing else, I wouldn't mind if this stayed between us. So I went back to my console and activated the cabin's SCIF mode. "Okay. No one will be able to hear anything."

"Good. Good. Now, um, what do you know about greyboxes?"

Okay… what that had to do with his disappearing act, I didn't know, but I guess I could play along for now. "Uh, neural implants that can hold memories or information. Generally restricted to researchers, spies or anyone needing eidetic memories. I actually know someone who's got one in her head."

"That's good, Charles, that's good. Well, what you didn't know is that I helped create them."

"What?"

"Yeah. Synthetic Insights launched them in 2160 to treat Alzheimer's, but they were having a lot of trouble with certain key steps. So in the last six months, I accepted a contract to help them work out the kinks."

Huh. So Keiji and Kasumi owed a pivotal moment of their lives to Dad's work. Who knew?

"It was… there were so many possibilities with that technology, Charles. I thought it could be used as a teaching device. A way to impart information and lessons. To help people learn and grow. To teach them new skills in a fraction of the time it would take to learn things traditionally. I thought the Alliance felt the same way. That's why they bought the patents and technologies for the greybox from Synthetic Insights.

"Unfortunately, I later found out they had more… 'practical' applications in mind. They wanted to use it to analyze data—from previously uploaded information or intel acquired in the field—and find patterns that VIs and analysts had missed. They wanted to use it to download knowledge and skills into their soldiers and spies to make them more powerful. Maybe even to 'customize' their operatives with skills suitable for individual missions. That… that was close to what I wanted, but not really. The Alliance—and Alliance Intelligence in particular—ruined my dream, Charles.

"But there's more. The greybox technology… had serious side effects. Dangerous ones. If the greybox had to be removed, if there was any damage to the hardware, or if there were any software problems, the subject would suffer serious brain damage. If they were lucky, they'd just lose some short-term memory. If not… they could become vegetables. Or brain-dead."

"For months, we worked to address those problems. We… we thought we'd fixed them. All the simulations panned out. We ran clinical trials, implanting them into volunteers, and had no problems whatsoever. So we moved to the next phase: a greybox pre-loaded with information and cover identities to allow an agent to go undercover."

"And?" I prompted.

"It was a disaster. One of the cover identities took over. He… the volunteer escaped, killing sixteen guards, scientists and engineers along the way. And now… he's still out there. Using the knowledge we gave him—that _I_ gave him."

Dad rubbed his eyes, as if trying to wipe away the haunted look on his face. If so, it failed. "Alliance Intelligence wanted us to figure out what happened and to correct the error so this 'incident' wouldn't happen again with the next volunteer. Yeah, that's right: they wanted to keep going. That's when I knew I had to do something."

"And that was why you disappeared?" I realized.

"Well, yeah. The first time."

"'First time'?"

"It's… complicated. Just bear with me, Charles."

"Okay," I nodded. "So the Alliance wanted to continue making the greyboxes more practical, even after that debacle, and you decided to do something."

"Right. Between the Alliance and Synthetic Insights, I'd been working on them for the better part of a year. I knew the technology inside and out. Without me… I know this sounds egotistical of me, but without me, they wouldn't be able to continue. So I left."

"Just like that?"

"Huh? Oh, right. Well, I uploaded a virus to wipe out the entire server. And another to wipe out the backups. And another one to overload the facility's power core. Oh, and I leaked a few reports my team had written detailing all the problems with greyboxes to certain news media outlets. Then I left. Just like that." He shook his head. "I should've made those pancakes before going to the facility."

"Did Mom know about what you did?"

He shook his head. "I signed a non-disclosure agreement when I first began consulting with them. And a lot of forms regarding supranational security. At the time, I didn't mind. The work was so cutting-edge, so ground-breaking. And by the time I realized what I was really a part of… it was too late."

"You didn't have a chance to tell her before you disappeared?"

"They called me into the facility, announced their intentions to continue the project, then said they were shipping me off to a secure bunker within the hour. I didn't have time to pack or anything. Just write some code like my life depended on it, set things in motion and run like hell."

"And that's why you've been gone all this time? Because you were afraid the Alliance would try to bring you back and make you rebuild the work you destroyed."

"Not just the Alliance," Dad corrected. "The salarians, the asari, the turians. Even Cerberus was interested—I was horrified when I heard they brought you back from the dead, by the way. Well, relieved that my boy would be back, but horrified that you were in their clutches. I was sure they would try to change you or brainwash you, despite all the e-mails between the Illusive Man and his underlings suggesting otherwise. And even if they were on the up and up, I didn't see how they could possibly bring you back the way they were. I mean, you'd been dead for so long.

"But yeah, that's why I spent the next twenty years in hiding. Always on the move, never staying anywhere for long. Because I was the only one who knew how greyboxes worked and how to expand their programming to new applications. As long as there was an interest in weaponizing them, I had to stay away. If I'd stayed in contact with you or your mother, and they found out, they'd use you two to draw me out. They've done it before, rat bastards."

"Hang on," I frowned. "You knew about Cerberus bringing me back from the dead?"

He gave me a disappointed look. "Of course. I'd been keeping tabs on you and your mother. Surreptitiously, that is. Come on, Charles: if I could sabotage the greybox project in an hour, I could certainly keep up to speed on how you two were doing."

Okay. Yeah. That _was_ pretty obvious. Chalk it up to the shock of actually seeing, sitting down and _talking_ with my dad.

"I wasn't the only one monitoring you, as it turned out. There was someone else. And he was _good_ : I tried to track him down, but he had no trouble covering his tracks. His countermeasures were so sophisticated, so effective. It was almost as if he knew what I was doing and how I'd go about it. It would all become clear later on, but at the time, he was just some mysterious entity that kept eluding my efforts. The closest I ever got was a username: Orion."

My eyes widened. "Orion? I know him. He's been feeding me intel throughout the war. And even before that, he's been helping me out."

"I know," Dad nodded. "If it wasn't for that, I'd have been a lot more worried."

"So why come out now?" I asked. "Why after all this time? What changed?"

"There were a couple reasons," Dad said. "Interest in greyboxes has gone down significantly over the last two decades. Partly because of a couple studies that came out shortly after I disappeared, which showed any advantages gained in information retention and memory recall were vastly outweighed by the high probability of neurological degradation and damage."

"Yeah, that'd do it," I agreed.

"Second, Admiral Graham—I believe you crossed paths once or twice."

"Sure did," I scowled. "He recalled me while I was on leave for a solo mission. Almost missed Christmas with Ellie."

"Sounds about right," he nodded grimly. "He was also the one who spearheaded the project and was its moist vocal proponent. Didn't really care about any obstacles—or people—who got in his way. Really nice guy. Well, he's dead now. Killed along with all the others on Arcturus Station when the Reapers first invaded the Sol system."

Something in my face must've changed, because he gave me a gentle nudge. "By the way, I know you've been tasked with helping retake Earth. I'm really proud of you, son."

"Thanks, Dad," I said, forcing the words past a sudden lump in my throat. "It's… it's been really rough."

He put a comforting hand on my shoulder. I almost buckled under the weight. Not that his hand was heavy or anything. I just… it's been a long time since he'd done that. Twenty years or so.

"But as for why I waited until this specific point in time to break my silence… well, like I said, it's a bit complicated."

Raising an eyebrow, I spread my hands and gestured around the room. "I'm not going anywhere."

"All right." He took a deep breath. "It was about… two years ago. I was exploring the ruins of Ilos, scouting the area, finding a place to set up my latest hiding spot. A new place to lay low. Well, as usual, I was monitoring my surroundings for comm signals, energy emissions, anything out of the ordinary.

"So imagine my surprise when, all of a sudden, my sensors went haywire. From what I could tell, there was a massive spike in energy somewhere in my immediate vicinity."

"Like something powering up?" I asked.

"No, that's the thing. It was just the opposite. The readings began subsiding almost immediately. Like something had just appeared out of nowhere and was powering down. The closest thing I could think of was the EM profile you get right after a ship exits FTL or finishes transitioning through a mass relay.

"Naturally, I was curious. What was it, I wondered, and did it mean I had to leave? Only one way to find out. I went over the sensor readouts, extrapolated a probable location, and made my way over there."

"And? Did you find it?"

"Yeah. I did. Wasn't sure what to make of it at first. It was this… it was cylindrical in shape, with an angled front and rear. Probably silver-grey at some point, but it was covered in a coppery patina of rust with iridescent oily patches. Roughly the size of a shuttle, but there were no thrusters that I could see. No sign at all of how it had appeared—and I do mean, appeared. The shuttle, though I didn't realize what it was at first, was sitting smack dab in the middle of an underground chamber. Surrounded by rock and vines on all sides. None of the passages were large enough to squeeze it through—some of them were so narrow, even _I_ had trouble fitting in."

I leaned forward, intrigued. "So how did it get there?"

"That's what I wanted to know," Dad said excitedly. "And I saw a way to find out. You see, the rear was open."

"Open?"

"Like a hatch or ramp. It was down. Open. As if… inviting me in."

"Come right in, said the spider to the fly," I muttered.

"The thought had occurred to me," Dad admitted. "Briefly. After I'd walked—well, jogged—up the ramp and entered the shuttle."

"And?"

"The shuttle only had one route of access: the ramp I'd used to get in. The rear compartment might have been intended for supplies or personnel at some point, judging by the odd bolt-like holes and bracketing on the walls and floor. Whatever it might have held, it had been removed to make way for a large ovoid object that was hovering in mid-air. It didn't take up all the space, mind you, but I did have to squeeze past it."

"What was it?" I wanted to know.

"That's what I was wondering. Then I saw the front compartment. It looked like some kind of control centre. Or maybe a cockpit. There were two chairs and something that looked like a computer console—"

"Hang on," I interrupted. "'Some kind of?' 'Maybe a cockpit?' 'Looked like a computer?' You mean you didn't know for sure?"

"Well, no. Not for certain. I could make some assumptions, sure, but nothing concrete. You see, when I pushed a few buttons, the… images that came up weren't in any language I'd ever seen before. And the layout and configuration wasn't like anything I'd seen before."

"So what did you do next?"

Dad rubbed a hand over his eyes. "What happened was I spent the next two years camped out by the shuttle, trying to figure out how to make it work. I worked day and night, trying to figure out what made her tick. The only time I came up for air—literally—was to check in on you and your mother. That's how I knew you were alive, how you fought the Collectors—"

"How I couldn't save all those lives in the Bahak system," I interrupted. "How I couldn't stop the Reapers from invading."

"You did everything you could," Dad told me. "Everything and then some. Because of you, at least some of those batarians are still alive. Because of you, the Reapers were delayed six more months. Six more months for people to spend with their families. Six more months for people to prepare… well, for some people to try to prepare," he amended after I snorted. "That's six more months than they would've had otherwise. Trust me, I know it wasn't the best of circumstances, but at least you tried. At least you gave the galaxy something."

"I guess," I said softly. "I just wish I could've done more."

"That's your mother in you," he said fondly. "She was never satisfied to settle for seeing the galaxy the way it appeared to be. She always wanted to do more. She always tried to see the galaxy the way it could be, then did everything she could to make it happen. I always loved that about her. Now me, I was just satisfied to build things, take them apart and figure out how they worked."

"Speaking of which," I said, "did you finally figure out that shuttle?"

"I thought I did," he said. "Managed to turn the lights on and off, learned how to raise and lower the ramp, figured out how to power her up—"

"Wow," I said dryly. "Stop the presses."

"Hold your horses, I'm getting there," he smiled. "Seeing how you don't want to hear the whole list, I'll get to the point: I got her off the ground."

"She flew?" I gasped. "You got her out of the catacombs?"

"Not exactly. Oh, she got off the ground, all right. Which was miles ahead of anything I'd managed to accomplish before. So I thought I'd try a short test run. Nothing fancy. Just spin around in a circle. Maybe move forward a few metres. Simple stuff."

"And?"

"The last thing I heard was a loud humming sound behind me. Looking behind, I could see the ovoid device in the compartment behind me lighting up like a Christmas tree, building up to something. I took a look at the console to see what was happening when everything went white…"

…

"Yeah?" I prodded. "What happened?"

"Well, I must have blacked out or something. The next thing I knew, I was on a bed. Not the beat-up, worn-out sleeping bag and inflatable mattress I'd been using for the last twenty years. An actual bed with a real mattress and sheets.

"I sat up, only to be overcome by vertigo. So I only heard a door behind me open and glimpsed a figure walk in. As my vision cleared up, I looked at the… being before me.

"Bipedal with bilateral symmetry, which was fairly typical for sapient life in this galaxy. Each foot had two toes, spread wide apart, while each hand had three fingers. His head was angular, covered in a blue-grey carapace, with yellow spots like freckles over his three pairs of nostrils. He looked at me with his four eyes, each with two pupils, for a long time.

"Well met, human," he said at last.


	2. Tempus Fugit

_**Author's Note**_ _:_

 _Yes, believe it or not, this is the second chapter of Heroes of Future Past! As I explained once upon a time, this fanfic was put on the proverbial back burner due to writer's block while other fics—A Naïve and Sentimental Hero, The Hero Rises and Aria's Lament—had their time in the spotlight. But now Heroes of Future Past is back—and expanded to three chapters!_

 _As many readers and reviewers have guessed, I drew some additional inspiration for Heroes of Future Past from the TV series Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis. I just didn't mention it initially to avoid spoiling the twist at the end of the first chapter._

 _Please note that_ this _chapter will be narrated from the perspective of Stephen Shepard—a.k.a. Dad. Also, there will be some bouncing back and forth between different time periods. Time jumps aside, this fanfic is intended to take place before Priority: Thessia (Chapters 41 and 42 of The Hero Rises)._

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Tempus Fugit**

Charles wasn't as surprised as you might expect. I guess that made sense. He did receive a data dump from a Prothean beacon into his brain—and if that was anything like downloading data or software patches into a greybox, then it's incredible he's still alive. He'd fought a wide and bewildering range of adversaries, including mercenaries, geth, rachni, Collectors and Reapers. And his crew included what could very well be the last living Prothean. For anyone else, this would be mind-boggling. For my son, it was just another Monday.

My son. I never really thought I deserved to call him that. Mostly because I felt completely out of my depth. It's been that way since Hannah first told me she was pregnant. She was excited. So was I, at first. But the more I thought about it, the more panicked I got. What did I know about parenting or raising a child?

Some people admit to feeling the same thing, only to have everything change when their son or daughter is finally born. They experience some revelation that makes everything better or gives them the confidence to bear their newfound responsibility. Me? I felt sick. I still didn't know how to be a father. I still didn't know how to raise a son. I just knew that somehow, some way, I'd screw up.

Deep down, I think that's why I kept accepting all those consulting jobs, despite the growing reservations about the ethics and morality of what I was doing. Not because I could tinker with cutting-edge technology, push engineering principles to the next level, or work in an environment where my strengths and talents were recognized. No, I kept going back because it offered a refuge. I could bury myself in work and forget about being a parent. I could run away from the most important role of my life and my feelings of inadequacy.

Oh, I'm not proud of that. If there is a Hell, I'm sure there's a corner set aside for guys like me. But I can't deny that I ran from my responsibilities as a father whenever the opportunity arose. That includes my decision to destroy my work on greyboxes and go into hiding. Going on the run meant I wouldn't have to be a father in Charles' life.

There were lots of ways I could justify the choice I made that day. I could say it was for everyone's good. That my research was being abused and I had to stop. How I monitored my family from afar rather than cutting my ties entirely. But the end result was the same: I've spent my life—my son's life—running away. Every time it mattered. And by the time I realized that, I almost didn't make it back.

Part of me still couldn't believe how my son reacted so well to my return. Oh he was mad—and he had every right to be. He clearly had so many issues that had been building up inside him, and who could blame him? The things he said… he said he could've taken his own life. His own _life_! He must have been in so much pain and anguish for all these years to even _consider_ such an act. I caused that with my absence, my failure to be there when he needed me. The fact that he grew up to be the man I saw sitting beside me, the inspiration and leader for so many people, was a miracle. The fact that he chose to listen to my story, one I had been waiting to tell for so long, was another one. I couldn't take credit for any of that. But I could take advantage of this second chance, even if I didn't deserve it.

Charles finally realized that his mouth was hanging open. He closed it, licked his lips and gathered his thoughts. "So Javik wasn't the first Prothean you've ever met?"

"Is that his name?"

"Yeah," he nodded sheepishly. "Sorry. I guess I forgot to make introductions."

I waved his apology off. "Even if you did, I probably would've forgotten. Memory's the first to go, right?"

"That's what they say."

"'They' say a lot of things."

"Yes, they do."

"Um, anyway…"

"Right." I shook my head before I could get sidetracked again and sat down beside him. I took a moment to gather my thoughts. Strange that I had spent all this time dreaming about returning to my son, but none about what I would say when the day finally came. "As I was saying, I did encounter Protheans before your friend Javik," I began. "Only it was about fifty thousand years ago…"

* * *

His name was Ksad, Charles.

I later learned his full name was Ksad Ishan; one of the Prothean Empire's most respected scientists and Chief Overseer of this facility on Ilos. To me, though, he was just Ksad.

At the time, I thought he was trying to go easy on me. That he didn't want to give too much information at once and overwhelm me. Which would have been fair: I was really confused. Looking back, I think he was just a humble man—Prothean, whatever—who didn't want to parade his titles or accomplishments around. Which was pretty amazing considering he was dying.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We exchanged introductions. Ksad confirmed that he was, in fact, a Prothean. He also told me about the fascinating ability of his people to 'read' the genetic memory of other species, which allowed him to understand my language and talk to me. After grilling him on the kinds of things he could pick up using this talent, my next question was "Where am I?"

"Ilos. In one of the underground catacombs common to this continent."

"Right where I started, in other words."

"Same place, yes. But not the same time."

I stared at Ksad blankly. "What?"

"Based on quantum dating, I'd say you travelled forty-nine thousand, two hundred and seventy nine years into the past—your past, that is. Plus or minus a few months, of course."

"Of course," I managed, as if we were talking about simple statistical analysis and not _time travel_. Time travel. For real, not in some vid. Time travel. Hoo boy.

"So, um," I tried for casual nonchalance. "If I went back in time about fifty thousand years, that would make you a Prothean."

"Just so," he nodded.

"Any other Protheans hiding about?"

"If you had arrived last week, I would have said yes. I might have even introduced you to them. Though perhaps I would have given you fair warning first: some of my colleagues can be arrogant. Could have been arrogant, I should say. They're gone now."

He went on to explain what you already knew. How centuries ago, the Reapers had begun invading the galaxy and slaughtering every organic civilization that existed. How the Prothean Empire, at the height of its glory and power, had failed to stop it. How the Protheans on Ilos had been spared because the records of their facility had been destroyed during the initial series of attacks.

Ksad explained that the staff had quickly concluded that they could not hope to defeat the Reapers. They could only wait them out. To that end, they put themselves into cryogenic suspension until the Reapers had finished and left. Vigil was tasked to wake them up when the Reapers were gone.

Unfortunately, it took centuries for the Reapers to leave and the Ilos facility simply did not have enough power to maintain so many stasis pods for so long. In an effort to conserve power, Vigil began deactivating the pods one by one. By the time the Reapers left, only a dozen Protheans—the top scientific minds—were left. When I marvelled at how Vigil was capable of making such a decision on his own, Ksad grew very still. After a while, he quietly admitted that he had anticipated certain worst-case scenarios and added certain protocols to Vigil's programming to cover that eventuality. He never imagined that Vigil would go so far to carry out his directives. If he was human, I'd say he was feeling terribly guilty about what he'd done. But who's to say guilt was a strictly human feeling? There was certainly a poignant silence that lingered for some time.

Once the scientists had awoken, they began to see if any other pods were viable. They soon discovered that most of the pods had been deactivated—and the Protheans stored within had died. Several more pods had readings that suggested the viability of life, but time after time those signals proved to be errors and glitches. After the 374th 'fatal error,' the scientists gave up.

In any event, it was obvious that the Protheans as a species were doomed. Twelve Protheans were not enough to repopulate their people, much less the Empire. So they decided to rededicate their lives to ensuring that future species would not suffer their fate.

One of the goals of the Ilos facility was to research mass relay technology. To that end, they'd created a pair of prototype mass relays, independent of the mass relay network that spanned the galaxy. One of them was situated on the Citadel, the centre of galactic power for the Prothean Empire—and for countless species over countless cycles, as intended by the Reapers. The other relay was here on Ilos. The scientists had determined that the keepers, the indigenous species on the Citadel, had been engineered or reprogrammed to maintain the Citadel's systems—until they received a signal from the Reapers. Once they got the signal, they would turn the Citadel itself into a mass relay, opening it to dark space where the Reapers waited and allowing them to enter the galaxy and begin the next invasion.

The Protheans had also discovered that the keepers had evolved so they responded to signals sent by the Citadel, not by the Reapers themselves. Normally that wouldn't be an issue: the Reapers would simply send the signal to the Citadel, the Citadel would relay that signal to the keepers and the keepers would activate the Citadel's mass relay function. But if the Protheans could alter the signal sent from the Citadel to the keepers, it was possible that they could short-circuit that entire process.

At this point, I couldn't help but blurt out the correction that the Reapers didn't send the signal from dark space. Rather, they had left one of their own behind as a vanguard to monitor the technological progress of the various species and send the signal when it judged enough progress had been made. But I digress.

After successfully activating their miniature relay, which they called the Conduit, Ksad's colleagues departed for the Citadel. Unfortunately, the relay was in its prototype stages and only worked in one direction. Which meant that, unless they could find a ship or means to leave the Citadel, they would be stuck there to die. But they were willing to make that sacrifice, given that their Empire and people were already in their dying days anyway, if it meant that future cycles would be spared their fate.

Ksad, however, had chosen to stay behind. He had wanted to add some additional programming to Vigil's code so it could provide information for any Protheans who might somehow make it to Ilos—a Hail Mary if I ever heard one, but what could it hurt at this point? He also had the hopes of using Vigil as a time capsule for future cycles. Finally, there was the slight chance that the Conduit would not work, in which case someone had to devise one last plan to thwart the Reapers.

As it turned out, he had just finished inputting his updates and was wondering what to do next when the time machine materialized out of thin air. He approached the machine, managed to open it up, saw my unconscious body in the cockpit and brought me to a more comfortable place until I woke up.

Now that he had explained his side of the story, it was my turn. Not that it lasted very long. When Ksad had 'read' me, he had learned all sorts of things. He was fascinated to hear that so many species that the Protheans had monitored, protected and—apparently in some cases—nurtured had progressed to the point where they made it to space and were now travelling amongst the stars. He couldn't believe that the majority of those species existed semi-autonomously under a central authority, rather than a single interstellar empire like the Protheans. He was overjoyed to hear that his colleagues had succeeded in delaying the Reapers' next invasion for so long and that Vigil had helped you thwart their next attempt. Nevertheless, he was saddened to hear that, despite all our accomplishments and the efforts of his people, the Reapers had returned.

"Which is why I'm sure you'll understand my desire to return to the future, to my people," I said. "To my family. The time machine may be my only chance to return home."

"Yes, I do understand," he replied. "Let's get started, shall we?"

Well now. That was easy.

* * *

So that's how I wound up back in the underground chamber where I first found the time machine. Only this time I was about fifty thousand years—I wasn't going to be as exact as Ksad—in the past. With a real, breathing, honest-to-gosh Prothean helping me figure out how to get the damn thing working again.

You see, Charles, the power core had been depleted during the trip back in time. Which meant the time machine was a very large and high-tech paperweight. Ksad had a few ideas on how that happened. Trying to figure out what he was saying, the ideas that he threw about only to reject just as quickly, the underlying principles and concepts… I prided myself as being fairly knowledgeable, but I don't think I understood more than one out of every three words. It was quite humbling, actually.

After an hour of this, he saw my confusion and… well, if he didn't dumb it down for my benefit, he certainly began explaining things in clearer detail. Between the two of us, we spent the next few days cobbling together some kind of generator. It didn't look as clean and streamlined as most of the Prothean tech I had seen during my brief time there, but it looked like it would do the trick. Anyway, we brought it to the chamber, pried off an exterior panel from the ship and plugged the generator directly into the power core.

Various panels on the core lit up as it hummed to life. We burst into cheers. Ksad started talking excitedly, speculating on how long it would take to power up.

I was about to join in the conversation—or at least turn it from a monologue to a dialogue. Then I saw an arc of electricity crackle over the core. It came and went so fast, I thought I was imagining things. "Um… Ksad? Did you see that?"

He didn't pay any attention to me, too engrossed in zero point energy or something like that.

Another arc danced from the core. Okay, I told myself. I definitely wasn't imagining it. "Ksad?"

Still nothing.

By this point, there were a lot of erratically blinking lights. The soft, gentle hum that had heralded us when the core first powered up had now become an alarmingly insistent whine. And there was now a steady sizzle of energy dancing all over the core. "HEY! KSAD!" I shouted.

He finally stopped chattering away and turned to me. I pointed to the core as sweat broke out on my forehead. "I think we've got a problem."

A few seconds later, I found out how much of an understatement that was.

With a sharp crack, a beam of brilliant blue light burst from the centre of the power core, narrowly missing me. Then another beam flashed out. And another. We all slowly edged away, instinctively avoiding that particular area.

The fourth beam hit a nearby crate, bathing it in radiation from one end to another. Nothing happened for the first couple seconds.

Then it… changed.

Before our eyes, half of the crate melted, sloughing off and pooling onto the floor like melted ice cream. The other half changed colour, turning darker and redder with each passing second—it took me a moment to realize it was rusting right in front of me.

Then the energy beams began to blast from the core in earnest. And I ran.

The direction of the beams seemed random, as did the interval between them, but the effects were undeniable. I saw a beam carve a deep gouge in the wall. Another hit a crate and made it vanish into thin air. Yet another hit the ration pack I had been munching on and turned it into melting, rotting sludge—something that, up until that point, I would have sworn was impossible. An errant beam ran over a nearby chair and desk, taking them away in a blinding flash of light before returning them… _fused_ together.

I just kept running. I had almost reached the exit…

…then I felt something hit me…

…my insides suddenly felt like they were being torn apart…

…and the world vanished in a blaze of blue light…

* * *

When the light faded away and my eyes cleared, I found myself in a very different place.

There was no time machine, for starters. No power core shooting out beams of death. No extraneous pieces of equipment. No Ksad. I _was_ underground, for what that was worth. At least, I think I was underground. Everything was pitch black, you see. I couldn't even see my hand when I waved it in front of my face.

My head jerked upward as a deep percussive noise rumbled overhead. I froze in place as several more percussive booms rang out. Then there was a pause. Taking a deep breath, I slowly lowered my head—only to jerk it back up and freeze as a new noise reached my ears. It sounded like something falling down. And because I was effectively blind as a bat, I couldn't see squat. Even if the noise was a portent of something dangerous, I wouldn't even know where to run.

Silence came back. I slowly exhaled.

Then I heard a crackling noise

I flinched as a crack of light burst through. It was small, almost like a pinhole at first. But then it grew. I watched it spread like some kind of crude animation on a vid-screen, zig-zagging back and forth before splitting at some invisible fork and continuing to grow. Before I knew it, the one hole had spread into a veritable spider-web of cracks…

Cracks.

Aw, crap.

With a loud thunderclap, the 'ceiling,' for lack of a better word, collapsed above me. I covered my head with my arms, closed my eyes and ducked as a storm of boulders rained down. Miraculously, none of them hit me.

Maybe it was my imagination, I could've sworn I heard someone laughing over the roar. I chanced a look upward and started as I saw someone falling. Whatever had been going on up above, it had caused the rock to collapse, allowing the ambient light from above to filter down. Now that I could see what I was doing, I braced myself, gripped an outcrop of rock the best I could and reached out…

…and almost got jerked off my feet. The laws of physics—namely gravity and momentum—came this close to overwhelming me and pulling both of us into the abyss. But I managed to recover in the nick of time. "I gotcha!" I cried out.

Gritting my teeth, I pulled with every ounce of strength I possessed. Somehow, I managed to get the person back on the ledge with me.

"Hi, Dad. So this is where you saved me."

…

You have no idea how shocked I was to hear that, Charles. After years of being separated from you, to hear your voice again—to _see_ you once again—was almost more than I could bear. I stared at you in astonishment for what seemed like an eternity.

Then what you said finally sunk in. "You… you knew I was going to be here?" I sputtered.

You nodded. "I didn't know on which planet we'd cross paths again, but yeah. I knew. You told me."

"'Again'," I said. "So we've met before. But… I don't remember."

"That's because it hasn't happened for you," you smiled. "Not yet. Not for you. But for me… it's like it happened yesterday."

Because it probably did, I realized. I must have been struck by some kind of temporal energy from the time machine's power core. That energy, by luck or by fate, had brought me forward into the future, to the right time and place to save your life. And you knew that—because of this conversation we're having now. Just a little hint of what's to come, Charles. Um, maybe don't put that in any kind of official record. You don't want to screw up the timeline. Trust me.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I was talking about how I realized that I had just saved you from certain death and, by doing so, was finally reunited with you.

"Outstanding!" I burst out, matching your smile. "What more can you tell me? Did I—"

"Look, I'd love to stay and chat," he interrupted, "but we'll do that later. For you, I guess. Earlier for me, later for you."

I felt a sharp twinge in my side. Muscle cramp, I thought. Great. Just what I needed.

You looked up, staring at wherever you'd fallen from with concern. "I gotta get back up there and…"

If you said anything else, I didn't catch it. My stomach was seizing up—no. No, it felt like every organ in my body was being pulled in a thousand different directions. My hands tingled.

"Dad?" you asked in concern.

"I can feel it," I gasped. "I can feel it. It's happening."

"What's happe—wait. Now?"

"Yeah," I nodded. This was it. There was so much I wanted to say, but I didn't have the time. So I had to boil it down to what was most important: "Now. I… listen to me, Charles. In case I don't get a chance to say this, in case I forget to say it when we meet again, I just want you to know: I… am so proud of you. I always have been."

Everything started to flicker around me, an effect that quickly escalated to a jarring vibration that I could feel in my bones. I was about to disappear at any moment. I could feel it. But I hadn't left yet. So I had just enough time to squeeze out one last thing:

"Remember that, Charles: I am proud of you."

I winced as a particularly vicious lance of pain stabbed into my side. A groan escaped my lips.

And then my eyes were filled with a blinding blue light…

* * *

When my vision cleared up, I found myself back in the underground cave with the time machine.

The time machine! Still remembering how it had inadvertently sent me on that short little jaunt to the future, I whirled around until I could see it. To my relief, it was powered down. I guess Ksad had managed to disconnect it from the generator before it could cause any more—

—Ksad! With a start, I saw him lying down on his back. I scrambled over to see him. "Ksad!" I yelled. "Are you okay?"

The strain in his voice answered my question, though I did sense a wry undertone of humour. "That would depend on your definition of 'okay,' Stephen."

Once I got closer, I saw what he was talking about. The bottom half of his robes—oh, did I mention he was wearing robes like some kind of monk earlier?—was soaked in blood. "What happened?" I asked.

"The time machine 'happened," Ksad replied.

"One of those beams hit you," I guessed.

"It did. Though I feel it would be more accurate to say that it filleted me."

Ouch.

"While I was trying to shut down our makeshift generator, the beam hit me just below my ribs and carved its way down to my groin. My guts have been chopped into ribbons and will undoubtedly begin to decompose in short order. The massive internal bleeding has caused my blood pressure to plummet—which is why heart is under such terrible strain.

"Now I can use my biotics to keep the remaining tubes and connections stabilized, but eating would be next to impossible. Given the extent of my injuries, any food I consumed would probably rot anyway. I suppose I can still drink a little, but I would undoubtedly die of blood loss or infection long before I die of starvation."

I felt myself drop to the floor in shock. Somehow, I managed to assume some kind of seating position. "Ksad… I… I'm sorry."

"There's hardly a need to apologize, Stephen. If anything, _I_ owe _you_ an apology."

I stared at him blankly. "What?"

"It was my hope that once we had powered up the time machine, that I could use it to go back in time and warn the Empire of the coming Reaper threat. With the knowledge I had accumulated over the years, I suspect my people could do a far better job of fighting the Reapers. Perhaps we could even win. Of course, the changes that would cause in the timeline would alter your future in turn. There was no guarantee that it would reunite you with your family again. But I confess I did not really care. I placed my desires over your needs. For that, I sincerely apologize."

Maybe I should have been mad at him. Furious at this apparent betrayal. But if I was in his shoes, would I have done anything differently? If it was the Alliance and the rest of Citadel space that had been wiped out, and I suddenly had a time machine that could offer a do-over, would I really pass it up? Besides, he was no longer in any kind of shape to carry out his plans. Looking in his eyes—all four of them—I could see that he knew the same thing.

"Is there anything I can do?" I asked. "Do you need any rest?"

Ksad gave me a wan smile. "I will have all the rest I need very shortly. In the meantime, we need to get you home."

* * *

Well, it wasn't quite as simple as that.

First, I had to run to Ksad's quarters—after a few failed attempts where I got turned around and hopelessly lost—to get the Prothean equivalent of a medkit. He took enough drugs—or painkillers—to stabilize himself. Then we got down to work.

While I was off visiting the future, Ksad had been doing a lot more than just shutting down the generator and keeping his insides on the inside. He'd run an analysis on the power core and determined why it was… leaking radiation, for lack of a better phrase. Long story short: containment fields weren't aligned and there were some microscopic cracks in the power core. Once we fixed that, we plugged the generator back in and turned it on. This time, the power core started charging up without giving us any unpleasant—or, in Ksad's case, terminal—surprises.

But that wasn't all. He'd also taken a ton of readings on the time machine—both from when it first popped up in the cavern and during our initial power-up attempt when the damn thing went berserk. Based on his findings, he believed he had figured out how to attune the time machine's fields so it would go where—and when—the user desired.

Within a few days, we were done. The power core was fully charged. All systems seemed to be in the green. And I'd managed to set the controls to take me where I wanted to go.

Which left me with one last task.

Ksad had put up a good front, but he was definitely on his last legs. His skin had turned a sickly pale hue. At least one of his four eyes were glazed over at any particular time. And we had to replace his bandages several times because they kept getting soaked through with blood, pus and… other things. "I believe this is where we say farewell," he croaked.

"Yeah," I swallowed. "I… I wish things had turned out differently."

"So do I," he rasped. "Then again… maybe not. I spent the last years of my life accepting the fact that my people would go extinct. That our time in this galaxy had passed. I spent that time working to ensure that the next cycle would be better. That the people or peoples who grew up to travel amongst the stars and inherit our legacy would be in a better position to fight the Reapers when the time came. If what I've done in the past couple days was merely the continuation of that, then I am content."

I found myself humbled by how serenely he'd accepted everything that had happened. How I wished I had the eloquence to say what I wanted to say. But words have never been my forte. Instead, I held out my hand. He took it. Read me one last time. Sensed my thoughts and feelings, which spoke more eloquently than any speeches I could offer.

"It was a privilege to meet you, Ksad," I finally said.

"Likewise, Stephen. Now go. Your family is waiting for you."

With one final nod, I entered the time machine, hit the hatch controls, and turned around to face him. To cast my eyes on a living, breathing being from the past one last time. Once the hatch was closed, I went to the cockpit. I did one last status check and double-checked the coordinates in time and space. Everything was operating within what Ksad and I had determined were normal parameters. I was as ready as I'd ever be. So I initiated the transit sequence.

I heard the time machine power up. Saw everything outside the cockpit begin to vibrate, randomly flickering in and out of existence. My stomach twisted into knots.

Then the world disappeared in an azure flash.

* * *

The first thing I did when my vision cleared and my stomach stopped turning itself inside out was to check where I was. When I found out, I was… overcome with so much emotion. Relief that I'd made it. Astounded that the calculations Ksad and I had made were accurate after all. Overjoyed that I got it right on the first try.

Why, you ask? Because I'd arrived in another cave—I knew that because a nearby tunnel allowed some wan light to stream in, unlike the sealed cavern on Ilos where I had started from. More importantly, the communications satellite I'd managed to connect to—I was honestly surprised I could get any kind of reception, but I wasn't complaining, confirmed that I'd arrived on Mindoir—I had been sent here in 2164 on another job, and had explored this very cave during one of the few times that I hadn't been working, eating or sleeping. More important was _when_ I had arrived: 2166. I picked that year for a specific reason. After all, it was the year I'd gone on the run. The year I abandoned you and caused you so much unnecessary pain and grief. But not anymore. This time, I would do better. This time, I had a plan.

Over the next few months, I hacked into online scientific journals and submitted academic papers as part of a carefully orchestrated campaign to discredit greyboxes. Some of them warned that greyboxes could cause undesirable and possibly dangerous personality changes—up to and including overwriting the user's original personality entirely.

Others warned that the greybox was incompatible with human physiology, and attempts to use them would overload the user's brains, leading to brain-death or insanity.

Still others warned that prolonged use would cause memory loss. This amnesia could be anterograde—the loss of the ability to create new memories following the activation of the greybox—or the more commonly known retrograde form. Either way, the effects would be progressive, cumulative and ultimately irreversible.

While the papers covered different conditions, they all had the same theme: that greyboxes had a limited ability to retain memories and information. That they were rife with errors and serious side-effects—the kind that would render the user a drooling vegetable. My hope was that if I could disprove greyboxes as a viable technology, then maybe their use would be discouraged. Maybe the Alliance wouldn't bother using me to weaponize them. Maybe I wouldn't have to go on the run.

The only problem I could see was that the resulting change in the timeline could wipe me out from existence. I mean, if I altered history so I never left, then I wouldn't spend a few decades scuttling from bolthole to bolthole, which meant I would never discover the time machine on Ilos, which meant I would never go back in time to meet Ksad, which meant I would never travel forward in time. Oddly enough, I was okay with that. If giving you a family again meant that I—or this version of me—never existed, I was okay with that. Making you happy again was all that mattered.

It wasn't until the third or fourth e-mail that everything started to change. The light panels providing illumination began to randomly flicker. With each flicker, something changed. The computer screens displayed different menus. The lights on the console had a different arrangement. The seat next me swivelled to a different position. Even the rocks outside seemed to… to move. Faster and faster the changes occurred.

Then everything vanished in an explosion of light…

* * *

"Dad!"

I jerked to a sitting position. My eyes popped open to see… you.

Well, a younger you. A twelve-year old you. Looking very impatient. "Dad," you cried—well, whined, actually. "Come on. It's time for you to make breakfast."

It was? It took a few seconds before I found the chronometer. It was… 0630?

"Come on!" Yes, you were definitely whining. "You said you'd make pancakes. And I've been waiting _forever_."

"You did make a promise," an amused voice said. A very familiar voice. I turned to my left and saw… your mother. God, it was… how long had it been since… I…

"Stephen," Hannah frowned. "Are you all right?"

"Um… yeah," I managed. "Yeah, I'm fine. Pancakes. Breakfast. Right. Pancakes, coming right up."

Being the very model of grace, I got my feet tangled in the bed sheets—because I was apparently in bed—and fell out onto the floor. I'll spare you the comedy of errors that played out between the bedroom and the kitchen, a farce that was extended because I didn't know where the hell the kitchen _was_. And I'll spare you the details on my laughable attempt at breakfast. Let's just say my first dozen pancakes were best suited for chinaware. Charred black chinaware.

It took me a while, but I eventually determined what had happened. It seemed that the 'other' me and the rest of the greybox team had read the anonymous articles and ran their own tests to duplicate the published findings. They didn't verify everything, which made sense considering some of my claims were very theoretical, but they managed to replicate enough data to confirm the serious risks of expanding the application and weaponization of greyboxes. The powers that be determined that further experimentation would not be a good use of resources and, ultimately, the project was shut down.

Without any further work, I went back home and basically became a stay-at-home dad. I was there when you came home from school. I helped you do your homework. I helped make meals depending on when your mother was working and apparently became a pretty decent cook—which was why you and Hannah were surprised when I botched the pancakes so spectacularly.

Anyway, the bottom line was that we were happy. The three of us, together. We were happy. So happy that when her term of service came to an end, your mother decided not to re-enlist. She managed to get herself an honourable discharge. Not that she would be twiddling her thumbs, mind you: she got herself hired as the deputy marshal of the Alliance farming colony on Mindoir. Where she was now residing, along with her son and husband. The latter being me. Well, this version of me. Complete with all my memories and experiences—the abandonment, the time travel, everything. Of all the scenarios that could have unfolded, this was not one that I had anticipated.

But maybe this was meant to be. Maybe the universe had decided that I had suffered enough. That I had learned my lesson. And maybe this was my reward: the right to reunite with my family. Who knew? I certainly wasn't going to question Providence.

So I settled down on Mindoir. Officially I became one of the colony's computer technicians. Not a supervisor or anything with any kind of seniority, mostly because I spent a lot of my time fixing random things that broke down—and on a remote colony, there's _always_ something breaking down. But I was content with my lot in life, as my job really was secondary in importance. For the next four years, I devoted myself to being the best husband and father possible. The kind of man that you and your mother deserved.

And we were happy. _You_ were happy, Charles. Well, you were happy when you weren't hungry. Growth spurt, you see. Your mother and I sometimes wondered how you would feed yourself when you went to college. Oh yes: sixteen years old and you were already thinking about applying for early admission. You had your heart set on computer engineering, and you had the grades and drive to do it.

Unfortunately, galactic history and politics were never really my strong suit. If they were, maybe I would have realized the significance of where Mindoir was: inside the Attican Traverse, on the frontier of Citadel-controlled space, far too close to the Terminus Systems and all the pirates, slavers and other criminals that called that lawless expanse home. And maybe I would have remembered that it had been attacked by batarian slavers in 2170.

But I didn't. So I was blissfully unaware of our fate until it was too late.

* * *

It was a bright sunny day when the slavers attacked.

I had been near the outskirts of the colony since the crack of dawn, fixing some irrigation equipment that had broken down. After running the usual maintenance checks and going down the list of possibilities, I ultimately determined that the filter was completely clogged. Not to mention a couple tubes weren't firmly connected. Once that was done, the machine was right as rain. So I was pretty satisfied and content when I hopped back into my skycar and began the short flight back to the colony.

My first hint of trouble came as I was flying through a ravine. All the rock outcrops were blocking my view, but I could see a lot of smoke floating up. Smoke that was too dark and thick to be a simple bonfire or barbeque—especially as it was too early in the day for anything like that.

Then I emerged from the ravine.

Several small gunships were flying overhead, strafing the colony as they flew back and forth. Shuttles and larger craft were on the ground, lineups of people trudging up the lowered ramps. Most of the outlying buildings were on fire—the source of the smoke I had observed earlier. Gunfire clattered in the distance, interrupted by screams of agony and cries of sheer terror. I watched with horror as the tranquil, happy world I had worked to build for my family collapsed into a nightmarish hell of pain and suffering. Even an absent-minded civilian like me could put two and two together and realize: a) we were under attack, b) we had been for some time and c) there was nothing I could do but run or die.

Scratch that last part, I realized. There _was_ something else I could do.

Planting my hands on the controls, I spun the skycar around and headed back the way I came. About five seconds later, the proximity sensors went off. Glancing down, I found out that my presence hadn't gone unnoticed. One of the gunships had broken off and was pursuing me. I tried to get every last ounce of speed out of the engines so I could go faster. Faster would definitely be better.

But the gunship caught up with me. It fired a few shots before its nose grazed my right engine—or maybe I should say port. Or was that starboard? Whatever: that brief contact was enough to knock the skycar sideways. It was all I could do to regain control.

I wondered why the gunship hadn't just blown me out of the sky. Then I realized the pilot (pilots?) wanted to get up close and personal before killing me. Or capturing me—it suddenly occurred to me that the parade of people heading into those ships was probably slaves. Which meant our attackers were slavers. Or batarians. Or both.

Whatever they were, they were closing on us. Spotting a cluster of rocks up ahead, I adjusted my vector to tilt towards them. At the last second, I swerved aside so I just barely grazed them. The impact was enough to send several rocks flying into the gunship. I watched with satisfaction as it spun out of control before I entered in a new set of coordinates and continued on my way.

You see, I had an idea. The time machine that I had used before was still here on Mindoir. Believe it or not, handing it over to the Alliance or some other galactic authority did not seem like a good idea at all. If the educational and teaching aspects of the greybox could be so thoroughly misused, I shuddered to think at how the ability to alter time could be perverted. And yet, that was what I had in mind: to go back in time and change the course of history. Again.

At last, I arrived at the cave where I'd hidden the time machine and touched down. The engines were still cooling down when I popped the hatch, jumped out, ran into the cave and found the time machine. I fumbled with the controls until I remembered the sequence of keys needed to open it up.

Unfortunately, it had spent the past few years entirely dormant. Getting it up and running would take some time.

Time I no longer had, I suddenly realized, as I saw some movement in the shadows. Maybe it was survivors from the colony. Or maybe that gunship had recovered, followed me to the cave and dropped off some slavers to continue the pursuit.

Sure enough, it was the latter. A dozen or so batarians, clad in rough, industrial-quality leather. All of them had scowls on their faces and guns in their hands.

I felt my stomach twist, though that may have been more from the panic and stress I was feeling than from the time machine. Panic that only escalated as the batarians began shooting at me. Over the ambient hum of the time machine powering up, I could hear the bullets hit the hull. Hopefully the time machine was bullet-proof. Otherwise, I was in big trouble.

The lead batarian holstered his rifle and crouched down. When he stood up, he was holding a Really Big Gun. Or maybe it was some kind of rocket launcher—the batarian did have to balance the weapon on his shoulder. Either way, I had a sinking feeling that the time machine wouldn't be able to withstand this latest weapon.

Frantically, I began checking the controls, thinking of anything I could do to hurry things along. But the transit sequence had already been initiated and I simply didn't know any way to make it go faster. All I could do is cross my fingers. The time machine's hum reached a fever pitch as everything began to shake. My stomach was definitely trying to turn itself inside out. I looked out the viewscreen just in time to see the batarian fire his really big gun/launcher/whatever. A huge glowing fireball seemed to burst from the barrel and fly towards me. My hands clamped on the chair's armrests as I braced myself.

As the now-familiar blue flash blinded me, I could swear I felt the time machine jerk violently to the side...

* * *

As soon as I could see again, I ran a diagnostic. The results were as bad as I had feared.

The hull had indeed taken multiple hits. Thankfully, most of them consisted of a series of small dents. While I wasn't all that familiar with weapons, the average size of these malformations seemed consistent with bullets. Unfortunately, the last hit had landed with a far more explosive impact—right on the exterior panel that allowed access to the core. If I had to guess, I'd say that the explosion had caused a power surge. Alternatively, the detonation may have somehow affected the temporal field created by the core. Either way, there was no longer any guarantee that I was where—or when—I wanted.

My next thought was to run a scan for any satellites or comm buoys within sensor range. Or star formations that I could run against the navigational computer's records. But I couldn't pick up anything. It was like something was blocking my scans. Then I looked at the viewscreen.

And gaped.

Outside, the sky was completely covered by dark, stormy clouds. A flash of lightning provided some momentary illumination before everything went dark. In that brief glimpse, I saw I was in some kind of courtyard. Or clearing. There were buildings all around me. Sort of. Some of them were in ruins. Others had collapsed entirely.

I must have stared for quite some time, because I didn't even realize I was no longer alone until someone banged on the hull. Jumping in my ship, I saw several people in military armour. All of them armed. All of them pointing their weapons at me. Just like the batarians. This really wasn't my day.

Given the amount of damage the time machine seemed to have sustained, I wasn't confident that it could take another hit. It certainly wouldn't be able to make another jump through time before these people opened fire.

One of them pulled off his helmet, revealing a human face. His features suggested some Indian ancestry. "Open up and raise your hands," he shouted. At least, I think that's what he shouted—I couldn't really make out what he was saying. I was basing his orders on his lip movements. That and the banging on the hatch behind me.

Seeing no other possible course of action, I gave in and complied. The hatch opened up. I heard footsteps behind me, just before a pair of rough hands hauled me from my seat and dragged me out.

"Who are you?" the Indian man shouted.

"S-Stephen Shepard," I replied shakily.

"Well, Shepard, you're in big trouble," the man scowled. "See, we cleared this area. Then you and... whatever this thing is just pops up out of nowhere. This some kind of stealth ship? You trying to ambush us?"

"No."

"Well, maybe you're one of those guys who got brainwashed by the Reapers. Is that it? You indoctrinated?"

If I was, it didn't matter what I said. But I didn't think now was a good time to point that out. Not with a very unfriendly face glaring at me and a gun jabbing me hard in the back of the neck. "No, I'm not indoctrinated," I said.

"Then where did you come from?"

"The past."

"The what?" someone else asked.

"Fuck this shit," a third person—female by the sound of her voice—spat. "He's not one of us. Just shoot him and be done with it."

"He's unarmed!" yet another voice argued.

"He's probably a spy. Or indoctrinated."

"We don't know that."

"It's not our call," the first guy intervened. "Ramos, Ogawa: secure this… whatever it is. Everyone else: take this guy into custody and take him to the commander. She'll figure out what to do with him. Come on."

They searched me—roughly—emptying anything that might have been of value before surrounding me and taking me away. We marched quickly. I remember the air was cold, with a faint taste of ash. At first, we were just making our way through rubble, passing through the ruins. Then I saw a pair of soldiers, clearly on lookout. Then a turret of some kind. Before long, I was in the middle of some kind of camp, made up of makeshift tents and prefabricated buildings. I was pushed into one of the latter. We hurried down a cramped corridor, squeezing past wounded men and women, crates and soldiers heading the other way.

Finally, we reached a small room. Well, cell might be more like it. Nothing but a bed on one side and a toilet and sink on the other. I was shoved inside. The door closed. I heard the telltale click of a lock. And I was left in silence.

I don't know how much time passed before I heard footsteps outside. They stopped right in front of the door. "All right, what's this all about?" a woman's voice asked.

"We were on routine patrol. At 0920, an unidentified object appeared five klicks southwest of the base. One second it wasn't there. The next second, it was. Just popped up out of nowhere. There was one person inside—human. Male. We took him into custody."

"All right. I'll take it from here. Open it up."

The door slid open and a woman walked in. She was dressed in armour, just like everyone else I'd seen. Her hair was cut short, military-style. She might have been young once, maybe even pretty. But her eyes were old, hardened by seeing things that no one should have seen, her gaze cold and implacable. The left side of her face had been badly burned, long ago; skin blackened to a crisp. Her left eye had been removed, replaced by an ocular implant that blazed with cold blue light. In the cruellest of ironies, the burns and scars had twisted one side of her mouth up into a permanent, bitter smile.

"Um… hi?" I tried.

"You're gonna have to do better than that," she snapped.

"Okay. Though it might be easier if I knew who I was addressing."

"Fine. I'm Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams. Who are you, and what the hell are you doing here?"


	3. Omnia Mutantur

_**Author's Note**_ _:_

 _Scratch what I said: Heroes of Future Past will now be four chapters (well, three chapters and an epilogue)._

 _At this point, you may be wondering what's going on with The Hero Rises. Rest assured that I have_ not _forgotten about it. In fact, if I hadn't written Mass Effect 3: Omega from Garrus's perspective in 'Aria's Lament,' we would have had a lot more of The Hero Rises this year. My current plan—yes, I know what they say about best laid plans—is to finish Heroes of Future Past. I have a little more momentum for that at the moment and I_ really _want to wrap it up once and for all. With any luck, it'll be done by the end of the year. Once that's done, 2018 will be all about The Hero Rises._

 _Please note that this chapter will also be narrated from the perspective of Stephen Shepard—a.k.a. Dad._

* * *

 **Chapter 3: Omnia Mutantur**

To say I was speechless would be an understatement. Ashley Williams. Alive and standing before me in all her scarred glory. Which meant that something had gone very, very wrong.

"I'm gonna say this one more time," Williams said impatiently. "Who are you and what the hell are you doing here? Don't make me repeat myself again."

"S-Stephen Shepard," I stammered. "And you're… you're Ashley? Ashley Williams? My son knew you. Charles Shepard? First human Spectre and commanding officer of the Normandy? The two of you served together."

There was a flicker of—recognition? Something—in Williams' eyes. Then it was gone. "Shepard, huh? Sure. And I'm the goddamn Easter bunny. Shepard mentioned his mother before, but never his dad."

"I… I was in hiding. From the Alliance and… well, from being there for my son. I wasn't a great dad. Absentee parent is the best I can put it. But I discovered a time machine, see. Only I didn't know it was a time machine at the time. Hell, it took years before I even managed to get it working. And then it sent me back in time to visit the Protheans on Ilos. Well, one of them. And we went through some challenges to fix it. But we did. And I came back to make things right. To create the kind of happy family that Charles deserved. But then the batarians attacked us on Mindoir. I tried to get away but the time machine took some fire. And I found myself here. And…" I finally trailed off and mentally played back everything I just said. "And that sounds absolutely crazy, doesn't it?"

"Pretty much."

"Well, it's the truth."

"Uh huh."

"Really."

"Well, luckily I don't have to take your word for it."

There was a knock on the door. "Ah. There she is." Williams stood up. "Enter," she called out.

An asari dressed in plain black armour marched in. Her hands hovered over the pistols she wore at each hip, fingers twitching restlessly, as if she yearned to pull them out and squeeze the trigger. Around her neck, I saw what seemed at first to be a beaded necklace. It wasn't until I took a second look that I realized they were teeth. I forced myself to look her in the eye—and instantly regretted it.

"Williams," the asari said.

"T'Soni."

I started. "T'Soni? As in Liara T'Soni? Dr. Liara T'Soni?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"

"He says he is Stephen Shepard. Commander Shepard's father."

"And you want me to interrogate him? Get the truth out of him?" An ugly, unholy gleam lit up her eyes, the first emotion I saw in them since she entered the room. "It'll be my pleasure."

Without another word, she lunged at me—one hand stretched out towards my throat, the other splayed out like a claw, biotic energy crackling between each finger. I flinched back, banging my head against the wall.

"T'Soni!" Williams barked, grabbing her arm. "I was thinking you could meld minds with him. Not torture him."

"Fine." T'Soni shook herself free from Williams' grip. Quick as a snake, she grabbed me by the throat and shoved me against the wall. She gave me a cold smile. "Embrace eternity," she purred, her words filled with an equal mix of mockery and malice.

Then the world exploded.

I'd never melded minds with an asari before. Oh, I'd heard about it. Read several academic papers—some of my earlier greybox models were based on asari neural architecture. But I'd always thought melding was a blending of thoughts, a merger of two minds.

There was no blending. No merger. This was a brute-force attack right into my mind. Ripping through my thoughts, tearing through my memories at a relentless, overwhelming pace. The pain was unimaginable.

When I finally came to, I had a blinding headache. My throat felt sore too—and not just from the iron grip T'Soni had apparently maintained. I belatedly realized that I must have been screaming throughout the entire ordeal. Collapsing on the floor, I crawled away from her. Everything I knew about Liara T'Soni came from government records and hacked vid-recordings. From what I'd been able to piece together, Liara T'Soni had been a quiet, unassuming introvert who had been content to bury herself in the tranquil calm of archaeology. She might have become more… driven, over time, but that had always been tempered by compassion and restraint. But there was nothing compassionate or restrained about the… harridan that loomed over me.

"What do you know?" she marvelled. "He's telling the truth."

"So he really is Commander Shepard's father?" Williams pressed. "And he came here from the past? In a time machine?"

"Looks like."

"Anything else?"

"He knows things… but they're different."

"Whaddya mean?"

"I mean he remembers things differently. What happened in the last few years. What happened to me. To you—you died on Virmire, by the way."

Williams looked shocked at that bombshell. I can't say I blamed her.

"What happened to me and Wrex and, well, everybody. Yeah: a lot of that turned out differently. But all of that changed after he went back in time to meet the last Prothean on Ilos. And went forward in time to make things happily ever after for Shepard."

"My God," Williams muttered, staring at me. "You were telling the truth all along. You really are Shepard's father."

"God had nothing to do with it," T'Soni scoffed. "She abandoned us long before the Reapers arrived."

"We can debate that another time," Williams snapped. "What I want to know is what the hell did you do to him? Why was he screaming for three minutes straight?"

"You said meld minds with him," T'Soni smirked. "You never said I had to be gentle."

Williams clenched her fists, seemingly holding herself back from doing something. "If I had another asari under my command—"

"But you don't," T'Soni interrupted. "I'm all you've got."

Williams made a disgusted noise. "You're confined to quarters—again. Dismissed."

T'Soni gave her a mock salute and waltzed out.

* * *

"I'm sorry," Williams offered once the door closed. "I wish I knew another way to verify your story but we're kinda cut off from the rest of the galaxy. There aren't any databases available to do any fact-checks. And we don't have time to interrogate you."

"You mean torture the truth out of me," I croaked. "Without consent or due process."

"I mean _interrogate_ you," Williams insisted. "Humanely. I don't do torture."

I gestured towards the door where T'Soni had just departed.

"All right," she conceded. "Liara's mind melds have been the only reliable way of cutting through all the lies and getting straight to the truth. I know it wasn't a picnic, but we've been burned too many times and we can't afford another betrayal. Not here. Not now."

"She enjoys it," I said. "Causing pain. The Dr. T'Soni I saw with my son was never like that."

"What do you mean?"

"She wasn't so eager to jump to violence, for starters. She wasn't such a… a sadistic monster!" Stumbling to my feet, I began pacing back and forth. Or I tried—I only got a few steps before everything started spinning and I had to lean against the wall. "This isn't happening," I heard myself say. "This is insane. This isn't happening. This isn't happening."

I closed my eyes. "Okay. I changed history. Reunited with Charles and Hannah. Spent four happy, blissful years on Mindoir before it all went to hell. Is it possible that my tampering screwed up the timeline and created this crazy, alternate timeline? One that was so completely different from the one I remembered?"

"If it was, I wouldn't know. This hell is the only timeline I've ever known."

Opening my eyes, I looked at Williams. "Then I need to know what changed. What the differences are between my timeline and yours."

"You first. Now that I know you're on the level, let's hear your story again."

Seeing no other way, I gave in. Told her what happened to me. How I'd been buried in greybox technology research until I discovered that certain factions within the Alliance had more sinister intentions for my work. How I went on the run. How I discovered the time machine on Ilos and managed to get it working. How I went back in time to meet Ksad. How we managed to get it working again, after a brief and—for Ksad, lethal—misstep. How I changed history to give my son the happy family he deserved, only to send us all to Mindoir before the batarian slavers attacked. And how my efforts to escape led me here.

"Huh," Williams said when I finally finished. "If Liara didn't verify it, I wouldn't have believed it. I'd have thought you were crazy."

"I can't blame you for thinking that. In your shoes, I'd have had the same reaction. But it's true. Now, I've been patient. I've answered your questions. Now it's time for you to answer mine. Starting with Dr. T'Soni. Was she always like that?"

Williams leaned against the wall and shook her head. "No. She was just a quiet, sheltered, overly idealistic asari. Not to mention naïve—oh my Lord, you should've heard some of the tall tales she was willing to believe on face value. I used to tease Shepard that we should ask her about her sex life just to see what happened. She grew up a bit by the time we caught up with Saren, but she was still the same sweet kid—which is funny considering she's, like, three times my age. At least."

It occurred to me that I wasn't the only one who had a bad tendency to ramble. Mind you, this wasn't so bad. And I had the sense that this was a story that Williams didn't have a chance to tell all that often.

"But then…" Williams broke off. For the first time, she hesitated, as if unsure about how to proceed. "Did Shepard… in your timeline… did his travels ever take him near Alchera?"

I think that was the first time I felt… okay with her. She was still the hardened, scarred—in more ways than one, I had no doubt—soldier who let asari violate the minds of strangers just to verify their stories. But I couldn't help but appreciate her reluctance to drop bad news like a bombshell. "He did," I confirmed. "I know the Collectors ambushed the Normandy—the original Normandy SR-1—near Alchera. I also know that Liara eventually discovered that the Shadow Broker was going to sell his…" I broke off, taking several deep breaths to compose myself. "…to sell his… body to the Collectors," I continued, "and that she was instrumental in retrieving him and delivering him to Cerberus, who had promised they could bring him back.

"However, there was a price: she had to leave an associate of hers behind to be captured by the Shadow Broker. It wasn't until a year or so later that she found out he was still alive, and requested Shepard's assistance in rescuing him."

"That more or less tracks with the way things played out here," Williams said. "Except for the last part."

"Oh?" Then Williams' words sunk in. "Oh no."

"Feron never survived the Shadow Broker's tender mercies. He was tortured to death. The Shadow Broker filmed Feron's last moments and sent the vid-clips to Liara."

"Hoo boy," I sighed, suddenly seeing where this was going.

"It changed her. I didn't realize how much—none of us did—until I saw her on Illium. She'd become an information broker by then, but her main goal—her only goal—was to find the Shadow Broker. She tracked down every lead, questioned every contact. And if you thought your treatment was rough… from what we were able to piece together, she grew more and more… extreme with each interrogation she conducted. And yes, they _were_ interrogations. I think one of them even had his skin flayed off—while he was still alive.

"In the end, she tracked the Shadow Broker all the way to his flying base on Hagalaz. Sounds like something out of a bad spy vid, but it's true—unless things were different in your timeline." I shook my head and let Williams continue. "Liara went alone solo, even though she was still nursing injuries from a fight to the death with a rogue Spectre—Tela Vasir—who was on the Broker's payroll. By the time we caught up, she'd cut a bloody swath right through the ship. Slaughtered every merc in increasingly creative ways. And the Shadow Broker…" Williams broke off and shook her head. "Every square millimetre of his private sanctum was covered in his blood. I'm still not sure how Liara pulled that off."

"So she finally got her revenge," I said. "But that wasn't enough, was it?"

"No," Williams said sadly. "She got her revenge. She killed the Shadow Broker. But her pain didn't end. All that anger had eaten away at her until there was nothing left but bloodlust and vengeance. So she used her growing network of contacts to find another person who she decided warranted a sudden and violent death. And another. And another. I think that's why Shepard ultimately recruited her to help fight the Reapers. She was going to kill no matter what. At least this way, she could be… directed."

"And now she's here with you." I gestured around me and added "Where is 'here,' anyway?"

"We call it Alpha Site. It was originally established to organize our war effort against the Reapers. But that didn't go well. Bottom line: we lost. Alpha Site now holds the surviving remnants of the human race. And a few representatives of the other races, as you've seen with Liara."

"We lost," I repeated. "How?"

"Well, it's hard to say for sure. I mean, there were probably a lot of things that led up to it. But if I had to guess, I'd say the first big blow happened on Virmire."

"Virmire?"

"We followed an emergency broadcast from one of the Council's STG teams to Virmire. Saren had a base there. This sound familiar?"

"He was studying indoctrination," I nodded, "though that wasn't obvious at the time. What was apparent right from the beginning was that Saren was breeding—or cloning—an army of krogan. He'd found a cure to the genophage—or a workaround, anyway."

"Same here," Williams confirmed. "Wrex was furious. Ever since he joined on with Shepard, he'd made no secret of his desire to unify his people and his regret at how the genophage and lack of public sympathy had doomed his people to a slow death. Now, here on Virmire, was the answer to his prayers. And everyone told him they had to blow it up."

"Charles managed to talk him down," I revealed. "Persuade him that it wasn't a cure—and, as it turned out, he was right. But I digress. It wasn't a cure: it was a doorway to servitude and slavery."

"My Shepard didn't have the same silver tongue," Williams said sadly. "Things didn't go well. Guns were drawn. In the end… I had to shoot him."

"That doesn't sound like my son," I admitted. "He was always pretty good at talking people round to his way of thinking—though that usually involved sweet-talking me into giving him chocolate after his mother already said no. If he hadn't enlisted, and wasn't so set on pursuing a career in engineering, I sometimes thought he could've been a lawyer."

"Shepard could do that too, but… mostly with other humans." There must've been something, some look of confusion, on my face, because Williams continued with an explanation. "He never was comfortable around nonhumans. I think it was because of Mindoir."

"The slaver attack," I realized. "What happened?"

"You don't know?" Williams asked in surprise.

"If I knew, I wouldn't have agreed to settle down on Mindoir with my family," I said bitterly.

"Long story short: batarian slavers killed most of the colonists. They were the lucky ones. Everyone else had cranial control implants put in before they were shipped off to be sold to the highest bidder. The Alliance sent in the Marines, but they weren't able to break through their defences and rescue them. Shepard was the only survivor.

"Ever since then, Shepard had trouble interacting with or trusting nonhumans. Not that he was an out-and-out xenophobe or anything. He never took out a membership card with Terra Firma. And he certainly wasn't a Cerberus sympathizer—which made his collaboration with them all the more ironic. But still…"

She trailed off. Which was fine because I didn't know what to say either.

It was all my fault. I was the one who had to tamper with history. I was the one who could've stopped my family from settling on Mindoir but didn't. I was the one who allowed my son to lose his parents, his friends, his home and his innocence in one brutal, despicable act—scarring and warping his character beyond all recognition.

It was all my fault.

* * *

While I was busy exploring yet another way I'd failed my son, Williams had stepped outside to get a few reports and order in some food. "You're in luck," she told me when she came back, bearing a plate of steaming… something in each hand. "Chef's surprise."

I looked down at the plate. "And the surprise is?"

"What's diced up chicken breast, what's potato wedges and what's chopped up bok choy."

"Underneath all that sauce?" I finished. "You know it's laid on a little thick." And by thick, I meant there was so much sauce; you couldn't see the food underneath.

"Well something's gotta give the food taste. Otherwise, it tastes like sandpaper."

Wonderful. Oh well. Beggars couldn't be choosers.

We tucked in and scarfed down the food. Might not look appetizing, but I was starving. As for Williams, my guess was that she was used to eating when she could, because she never knew when she'd have her next meal—or how much time she'd have to eat.

"So you had to shoot Wrex," I said around a mouthful of sauce… and something. "What happened?"

Williams snorted. "What didn't happen? Shepard and the STG leader—Captain Kirrahe—tried to improvise an assault plan. But it all went to hell. I swear every geth and krogan had set up shop between us and the base—and they were all armed.

"Kirrahe was killed within the first hour of the mission. Kaidan had to take over. He did well, from what I could tell. Managed to coordinate three separate teams despite the fact that he'd never worked with any of them before. But they were too much for us. In the end, we had to leave Kaidan and the remaining STG operatives. They gave their lives to safeguard the bomb that was whipped up to level the facility. In one day, we lost an entire STG unit and two of our own. I don't think we ever recovered.

"That's what happened as far as I know," Williams concluded. "You remember anything different? Liara said I kicked the bucket, so I know that changed. And you said Wrex didn't go postal."

"Well, yeah. I mean, no, he didn't: my son managed to talk Wrex down before he did anything rash. As for the mission, well, it went off as well as could be expected. Charles managed to save Kaidan, Captain Kirrahe and most of the others. Unfortunately you—or your counterpart—didn't make it. You stayed behind to make sure the bomb went off."

Williams was quiet for a moment. "Well. At least I went out with a bang. That must've made my death memorable."

"It was more than memorable. Both the salarian and turian governments honoured you for your sacrifice. They gave you the…" I paused and dredged through my memory. This kind of detail never really stuck in my mind. "Um… the Silver… Blade? And the Nova something?"

"The Silver Blade? The Nova Cluster?" Williams suggested. "Those are some of the highest and most prestigious awards offered by the salarians and turians. And they gave it to me? Really?"

"Yes. Well, posthumously, of course. But still: you were the first human to receive them."

"Wow."

"So what happened?" I prompted, when it became clear that Williams wasn't about to continue on her own. "After Virmire?"

"After Virmire. Right. Okay." Williams shook her head to clear her thoughts. "We were still reeling from all the losses we'd suffered when Shepard got orders to return to the Citadel. The Council and ambassador Udina—in their infinite wisdom—had decided that the Reapers were a myth whipped up by Saren to fool Shepard into chasing him from one corner of the galaxy to the other. Therefore, rather than continue the search, find out what the Conduit was or do anything remotely proactive, they were going to form a blockade around the Citadel and wait. Of course, Shepard objected. That's when the Council grounded him and the Normandy.

"The same thing happened in my timeline too," I admitted.

"Figures," Williams growled. "Of all the things that had to be the same between our timelines, that would have to be it. Did Anderson offer to spring the Normandy loose for your Shepard?"

"Actually, he did. Broke into Udina's office to do so. By all accounts, he punched Udina's lights out."

"Same here." Williams grinned for the first time. "Anyway, we continued our pursuit of Saren all the way to Ilos. After wading our way through tons of geth, we found a Prothean VI named Vigil. It was Vigil that told us what really happened to the Protheans, how they stymied the next Reaper invasion and how the Conduit made that happen.

"Then we fought our way to the Conduit. Made it to the Citadel in one piece, which was more than I could say for the Mako. It was a tough fight, getting through wave after wave of geth, but we finally got to Saren and took him down."

"Took him down?" I interrupted. "You mean you had to fight him in the Council Chambers? My son was able to get through to him."

"Well, we weren't so lucky. Your Shepard managed to talk Saren down?"

"More like he helped Saren get through all that Reaper indoctrination, at least long enough for him to take his own life." I paused as something else occurred to me. "What happened next? Did Vigil give you a file to regain control of the Citadel?"

"Yeah. Managed to get in touch with Admiral Hackett too."

"What happened to the Council? They were trying to flee on the Destiny Ascension in my timeline, but had taken heavy fire."

"The Council tried to run too, but the Destiny Ascension had also taken damage and was dead in the water. My Shepard advised Hackett to hold the fleets in reserve to strike at Sovereign directly. Your Shepard told him to send the fleets in to save the Council instead?"

"Yes."

"Why?" Williams looked mystified. "It's not like they did anything. The Council was always more interested in covering their asses than actually doing anything. Besides, the Alliance fleets would've taken a serious beating if they had to escort the Destiny Ascension out _and_ taken on Sovereign."

"They did," I was forced to admit. "The First, Third and Fifth Fleets each lost about a third of their ships. But my son still felt it was the best choice. They may have been obstructive and inefficient, but they still served a vital role in galactic affairs."

"Well, my Shepard didn't make that choice. And the Council ultimately went down with the crew of the Destiny Ascension. So after the Battle of the Citadel was won and Sovereign was defeated, a new Council was formed—with Anderson chosen to be its chairman."

"How did that work out?"

"Not well," Williams sighed. "The other councillors rarely listened to Anderson and often put up roadblocks to anything he put forward, if they didn't just outvote him from the get-go."

"Is it possible they resented the Alliance's decision to sacrifice their predecessors, and Anderson by extension?" I suggested.

"Nah," she scoffed. Then she reconsidered. "Well… maybe. I don't know."

"If nothing else, the other races were probably depressed and demoralized by the death of the Council," I added. "Imagine how we would feel if it was the Alliance Parliament."

"You may have a point there," Williams conceded. "All I know for sure is that the Council put their collective heads in the sand as far as the Reapers were concerned. Not to mention letting the galaxy go to hell in a basket. Typical bureaucratic bullshit. The Alliance was run ragged trying to keep the peace while everyone else sat on their ass and did nothing. That was part of the reason why I was sent to Horizon."

"Horizon," I repeated. "Kaidan was sent there in my timeline."

"He was probably dispatched for the same reasons I was. Officially, the Alliance had been outfitting various colonies with GARDIAN laser turrets for their protection. Unfortunately, they wouldn't calibrate correctly. Which meant they couldn't fire. Which made them pretty damn useless—good job, Alliance! Way to convince those colonists that leaving the Alliance was a bad move on their part!"

My university education told me that Williams had some pent-up frustrations.

"The real reason was that the Alliance had gotten some intel that said Horizon would be the next colony to be hit, that Cerberus was behind the attacks and that Shepard was working for them now. Shepard: who'd supposedly been dead for the past couple years. Shepard: the first human Spectre. Needless to say, the Alliance wanted to know what the hell was going on.

"Shepard told me that the Collectors were responsible for all the attacks. But it turned out Cerberus did have a role. After he got back, Shepard found out that the Illusive Man deliberately lured the Collectors to Horizon to verify that they were in fact targeting humans specifically. He also leaked Shepard's association with Cerberus in an effort to drive a wedge between Shepard and the Alliance. So he probably wasn't happy when I wound up joining Shepard on the Normandy."

"You did?" I blurted out in surprise.

"Yeah. Why? Kaidan didn't?"

"No. In fact, they didn't leave on good terms at all."

"Huh. Well, we did. I guess the fact that we were sleeping together before the Collector ambush helped."

Now I _knew_ we were in an alternate timeline. "You were?"

"Yeah. Started just before we went to Ilos."

"Well…" I trailed off. "I guess you were consenting adults and everything. I hope my son treated you well."

"Does letting me be on top count?"

* * *

After that, I needed to sit down and take a break. I don't mind admitting that my head was spinning. And not just about Williams' frank and far-too-detailed admission of the extent of her relationship with my son. Okay, it was mostly that. But also the sheer number of changes between her timeline and mine. I knew Charles looked back on his missions and wondered what he could have done differently. What he could have done better. He wouldn't let it weigh down on him, but they certainly played a role in informing how he went about future assignments.

Based on what Williams had said so far, it was clear that the trauma from surviving the attack on Mindoir had scarred him. Deeply. That single act had irrevocably changed my son—and not necessarily for the better. And then there was the way his hunt for Saren unfolded. Losing Urdnot Wrex and Kirrahe on Virmire, sacrificing the Council so the Alliance could have a better shot at fighting Sovereign, the resulting resistance from the new Council and nonhumans. Any one of those developments would have drastic repercussions. The cumulative impact of all those developments compounding on each other… I was starting to see how things had gone so terribly, terribly wrong. As far as I could see, the only positive change that had come out of this timeline was the fact that his squadmate and lover—which I was pretty sure violated some kind of fraternization rule—didn't call him a traitor and reject him outright. She could've. Jilted lover. No, not jilted. Or dumped. Worse. She could've felt abandoned. Betrayed.

But she didn't. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. It said something about her, I decided. What, I wasn't quite sure.

I put my plate aside. The conversation had made me lose my appetite—though the food had done at least half of the work already. Things had gone so wrong in this timeline…

This timeline…

"Where's my ship," I asked suddenly. "The one I arrived in?"

"You mean the time machine?" Williams paused and shook her head in disbelief. "Never thought I'd actually use that in a sentence."

"I sympathize, but yes: the time machine." Hopping to my feet, I began to pace. "You see… the time machine was damaged on its latest trip. One of the batarian slavers that attacked Mindoir managed to land a lucky shot or something. But if I can fix it and go back in time—"

"Maybe you can change history," Williams finished. "For the better, hopefully. Or at least reset the timeline to the way it originally turned out."

"Exactly." I slowed down to a stop and glanced her way. "Though there's no guarantee that it won't turn out like this."

"Maybe not," Williams said. "But it can't be much worse than what we've got right now. Come on."

She handed me my omni-tool and a few other odds and ends from my pockets. Once I was ready, we left the room. Williams took the lead, getting situation reports and barking out orders as she went. I followed her down various corridors and out of the building. Seeing how the weather was still as miserable as when I had arrived, I didn't complain when we picked up the pace.

"So you joined Shepard on the Normandy," I shouted over the howling rain.

"Joined him. Fought alongside him. Helped him recruit misfits just as screwed up as him."

"What were they like? His squadmates, I mean?"

Williams considered my question. "Well, let's see. Jacob was a good soldier. Followed orders, but wasn't afraid to voice his concerns. No idea how he was related to his father—Jacob said he was a good man before he disappeared, so I guess I'll have to take his word on it. In my opinion, there's nothing good about anyone who could enslave his crew and turn the women under his command into his own personal harem. No tears shed when his former crewmates ripped him apart.

"Mordin was… wow. That was one speed-talking son-of-a-bitch. Shepard told me about some of the side projects he had going at any given time. _Crazy_. And being one of the architects of the genophage? Whoa. Freaky stuff there. Totally get why salarians are always painted as mad scientists. Though his protégé—the one we found experimenting on krogan females on Tuchanka—wasn't much better. After seeing what Maelon did, I wasn't about to stop Mordin from putting a bullet in his head. Not sure about him saving the genophage data just in case, but it wasn't my call.

"Miranda was an ice-cold bitch. Always prancing around in skin-tight leather and high heels. Not to mention totally brainwashed to the Cerberus cause. 'The Illusive Man said this.' 'The Illusive Man said that.' On and on and on. God. But I'll give her this much: she devoted an awful lot of time making sure her sister was okay. Even got Shepard to help keep her safe. I guess anyone who worries that much about her family can't be all bad. And she did see the light in the end."

"So Charles and Miranda never…"

"Nope," Williams shook her head. "Shepard and I were together, and he wasn't the kind of guy who cheated. Why? Wait." Williams leaned forward. "Shepard and _Miranda_? Really?"

"Apparently," I shrugged. "By all accounts, she changed a lot over the course of her association with my son. Became more open-minded, more personable."

"Really. Huh."

I let her process that while I continued making a go at my… meal. "What about the rest of the squad?" I asked, after a suitable amount of time had passed.

"Garrus—you know, it's funny: I never really trusted aliens before—especially turians. I mean, turians were the ones who laid siege to Shanxi, forced my grandfather to surrender and dragged my family name into the mud. And when Shepard became a Spectre, he had to hunt down Saren—also a turian. So the idea that a turian was working on the Normandy during that hunt? Fighting with us? Didn't sit well with me. But he turned out to be a pretty decent guy. Had as much patience with bureaucratic bullshit as I did. And he was a crack shot with the sniper rifle. So I was more than happy to pull his ass out of the fire on Omega. Not to mention helping him get some payback on that traitor Sidonis.

"Samara was… I dunno. People always look at me funny when I tell them I'm religious, but it's not like I beat 'em over the head with it. Samara… her Code might not be a religion, but it sure seemed that way. Everything about her was about the Code. 'By the Code, I must do this' and so on. But then she and Shepard went on a trip to Omega. Personal stuff. I don't know what happened there, but ever since they got back, she seemed… different. More intense. More creepy. I always meant to ask Shepard about that. I never did.

"Thane had this whole monk thing going. Very calm, very serene, bit of a recluse. _Definitely_ a badass once the fighting started. But he had some issues with his son that Shepard and I helped him out with. Oh, sorry," she abruptly apologized, eyes widening. "No offense or comparisons to you. And everyone else who had daddy issues—sorry, there I go again."

"It's all right," I reassured her. "From what I gathered, a lot of my son's squadmates had, as you put it, daddy issues. It seemed to be a thing."

"Yeah. Anyway, Shepard got to beat the crap out of some crook—totally deserved it—took out a dirty turian politician who didn't like humans—probably deserved it—and saved Thane's son from a murder rap."

"Kasumi was definitely a civvie. No offense, Stephen, but people aren't military—or even law enforcement—tend to talk and behave differently. She'd never shut up when we were on missions. Not that she actually caused any problems: she just kept up this running commentary of quips and wisecracks when the bullets weren't flying. Always had this hide-and-seek thing going, 'cuz she was never around when I dropped by to say hello. But apparently, she talked to Shepard. Enough to trust him with some heist thing on Bekenstein. From what I heard, there was a lot of action going on.

"Zaeed was like a lot of soldiers I knew. Always up for telling a story. And the more stories he told, the more blood was spilled and the higher the body count rose. Boy, did he enjoy it. Any doubts I might've had on that were thoroughly nixed when I accompanied him to Zorya. He cut a bloody swath right through that refinery. Didn't care if it burned to the ground or who got hurt along the way. All that mattered was that he killed his former buddy—and he did.

"Jack was… interesting. On the one hand, she'd fit right in with the Marines, the way she was all inked up and swore like a sailor. On the other hand, she had a total aversion to clothes. And some serious issues with authority figures—how Shepard kept her in line, I have no idea. Mind you, I was there when the squad went to Pragia. I saw what Cerberus did to her. If I'd been poked and prodded and tortured like she had, I'd probably be fucked up to. After that mission, she had a… talk… with Miranda. Shepard had to break it up. Can't blame him for siding with Jack.

"And then there was Tali. Before I met her, I thought quarians were just a bunch of space bums. Always moving around, looking for handouts, stealing work from men and women who actually got off their ass and got a job. But Tali was different. Always trying to help others, be it fixing an omni-tool or calibrating the engines. Never any complaints, just 'How can I help?' That was why I was shocked to hear that her own people had accused her of treason. Well, not her own people as much as the admirals who dragged her back for a kangaroo trial. They didn't care if she was innocent or guilty. They just wanted another stage to push their own personal agendas. Which was why I really enjoyed watching Shepard chew them out."

"What about Grunt?" I asked. "Or Legion?"

"Who and who now?"

"The genetically engineered krogan that Charles retrieved from Korlus? He named himself Grunt. And Legion was the geth that my son encountered while retrieving the Reaper IFF."

"Oh. Those guys. Yeah, Shepard never woke the krogan up. Didn't want another Wrex going off half-cocked. As for the geth, after all the time Shepard fought them, there was no way he was reactivating that thing. I think he wound up sending him to Cerberus for study. That was before he found out about Project: Overlord, though. He told me afterward that he would never have shipped the geth off to the Illusive Man if he'd known what they were doing."

I must say, out of all the things Williams had told me, things like this were the most upsetting. The descriptions of my son's squadmates sounded similar to the accounts I'd read. As were his efforts to help them out with their numerous personal problems—even if some of them had different outcomes. But this inherent distrust of krogan and geth… one of the most defining traits of his son was the ability to look _past_ surface appearances. To cut through history and species and get to know the person within. His ability—his _courage_ to see the best in people, to give them a chance. That quality was gone in this timeline and with it, a core part of what made my son… my son. And with that loss went any hope this timeline had.

"Speaking of the Reaper IFF, did the Collectors use it to shut down the Normandy and abduct her crew?" I asked.

"Yeah. Did your Joker free EDI too?"

"Yep."

"Not gonna lie: I did not like that at all. One of the few times that Miranda and I saw eye to eye. But we had bigger things to worry about."

"Going after the Collectors."

"Got it in one. Not that we were ready, but we didn't really have a choice."

* * *

We made it to the time machine at last. It had been moved to a roped-off area covered by a giant tarp. There were several shuttles and gunships there as well, all being repaired. Thankfully, Williams seemed to know where she was going, 'cuz I would've been hopelessly lost. Bending down, I began running a system-wide diagnostic with my omni-tool.

"Right," I said as the omni-tool began its scan. So you went after the Collectors. What happened?"

Williams laughed bitterly. "What didn't happen? Um, let's see: we went through the Omega 4 relay and almost flew into a couple derelict ships. Not exactly a good omen, that. Then we ran into a swarm of drones that packed some serious firepower. Despite Joker's best efforts to shake them off, they managed to land several shots. Their lasers carved through us with the same ease as the Collector ship and before we knew it... Jack was the first one to bite the dust. Console blew up in her face."

"Wait," I interrupted. "Your Shepard didn't upgrade the ship? There were any number of modifications that could've made a significant difference. Silaris armour, multicore shielding, Thanix cannons—none of those upgrades were installed?"

"We didn't have enough resources to build any of them and the Collector abductions forced our hand."

I guess my son wasn't inclined to spend his spare time mindlessly strip-mining planets. In hindsight, that was one costly oversight.

"One of those drones breached the hull. While Shepard, Zaeed and I dealt with it, Joker tried to shake off the remaining drones by flying through a debris field. The shields weren't able to hold up and the drive core overloaded. Kasumi… didn't make it. She sacrificed herself to get Tali and the other engineers out safely.

"We finally destroyed the drones when the Collector ship joined the fight. Don't ask me how, but Garrus managed to land some critical hits. Whole thing went up—but we were caught up in the explosion. A support beam fell down. Ran right through Thane like some giant skewer.

"That… was actually the worst of it. We managed to infiltrate the Collector base, rescue the Normandy crew and escort them out, and hold the line while Shepard, Tali and I went to the bowels of the Collector base, saw the horror that was being… built from all those abductees and blew the whole damn thing to kingdom come. Didn't lose a single man or woman… which was good because we'd already lost so many. Too many."

"Yeah," I said awkwardly. I mean, what else could you say in that kind of situation?

I searched my mind for something—anything—to say. All I could think of was to get Williams to continue her explanation of how our two timelines had diverged so drastically. "Did Charles ever get a call from Admiral Hackett regarding a Dr. Kenson?"

"Yeah," Williams nodded. He was asked to go in solo to extract her from a batarian prison on Aratoht. Unfortunately, security was too tight and he had to retreat. So Hackett had to send in troops from the 103rd Marine Division instead. Next thing we knew, the entire Bahak system just… vanished. Dropped right off the galaxy map.

"We spent the next few months piecing together radio transmissions. From what we could piece together, it sounded like Kenson's research team found proof that the Reapers were going to invade the galaxy in the next few days. I don't know if it was Kenson's team or the marines, but someone sent an asteroid to fly right into the relay. Either way, it bought us some more time, but the 103rd lost far too many men and women. What about you, Stephen? What happened in your timeline?"

"Charles got the same request," I hollered, dodging a maintenance worker with a welding torch and hurried to keep pace with her. "He managed to get Kenson out solo, though it seems like they had to fight their way off of Aratoht. Like you said, Kenson's team determined that the Reapers were going to invade the galaxy through the Bahak system's mass relay. Apparently it was some kind of special relay—Kenson called it an 'Alpha Relay'—that could link to any other relay in the network. Which meant that if they arrived, it would be game over.

"To stop that, Kenson and his team tricked out an asteroid with some thrusters and other starship parts they smuggled from Omega—that was why she got arrested. Seemed like they got sloppy at some point. The plan was to aim it at the mass relay and blow the whole thing up. Only downside was that the resulting explosion would wipe out the whole system and everyone in it."

"Unfortunately, they got their warning from a Reaper artifact buried in the asteroid, the same one they were planning on using to destroy the Alpha Relay. One that indoctrinated the entire team. They ambushed my son shortly after he arrived. When he woke up, he only had a few hours to spare to rig the asteroid, send out a distress call and evac out before the Reapers arrived. Made it with just a minute to spare."

"My God," Williams shook her head. "Casualties?"

"Over three hundred thousand batarian lives were lost. But thanks to some behind-the-scenes work on the Normandy, about ten thousand batarians were evac'd in time. Shepard turned himself in for a formal court martial. He was still there when the Reapers finally invaded."

* * *

I might've had more to say, but a beep from my omni-tool told me the diagnostic was complete. I pulled up the results on the omni-tool's holographic screen… and groaned.

"Bad?" Williams asked.

"Worse," I said grimly. "There are micro-fractures throughout the casing of the power core and the containment fields have been knocked out of alignment. The last time this happened, the time machine wouldn't power up. Instead, it just spat out bursts of temporal energy that drastically accelerated or reversed the aging process of anything it hit. Assuming it didn't just send you to some random point in space and time."

"Okay," Williams said slowly. "I'm not gonna pretend I fully understood that first part, but the consequences were pretty damn clear. Can you fix it?"

"I don't know," I admitted, spreading my hands out in a gesture of sheer helplessness. "It took two years for me to figure out how to start up the time machine in the first place. And it was Ksad who helped me learn how to program temporal coordinates so it didn't send me to anyplace, any time. Now… now it's just me."

"I could try to find an engineer to assist you," Williams offered. "Problem is: we really do need every available hand elsewhere. Besides, they'd be starting from scratch as far as this thing is concerned. You've had more hands-on experience with the time machine than anyone else."

"That's what scares me," I confessed. "All our hopes rest on 'little old me'."

"Can I tell you something?"

"Sure."

"I feel the same way," Williams said. "All the time. I have to look like I have the answers, even when I don't. Maybe especially when I don't. Because everyone looks to me for guidance. Because the hopes of Alpha Sites, of the last bastion of humanity itself, rests on my shoulders. On 'little old me.' Shepard—mine and yours—probably felt the same way. Sometimes… you just gotta have faith that you can muddle your way through." She attempted a smile and added "Though, to be fair, my faith hasn't really been rewarded in the last couple years."

She was right, of course. I hadn't personally seen Charles deal with those situations, but he'd inevitably faced them nonetheless. I knew Hannah had been forced to make those kinds of tough decisions time and time again, just as I knew she would have imparted any lessons she'd learned to our son. Right now, there was no one else who could help me and it would be counterproductive to bring anyone else up to speed. Like it or not, I was the only person available.

"All right. Let's see what I can do. Meanwhile, see if you can get me a portable generator. Once I get this thing up and running, it'll probably need a charge." Bending down, I opened the power core's exterior panel and got to work.

I'm not sure how much time passed before I realized that Williams returned. I only realized she was back when I turned around for a coil spanner. Part of me wondered why she was still here when there were other things going on. Part of me was grateful for the company. Figuring she could use something to occupy her time rather than stare at me, I asked my next question: "So Williams: was my son on Earth in your timeline when the Reapers arrived?"

"Yeah, he was there too," Williams scowled. "One last-ditch effort to get the Alliance to do something. Of course, they were too busy 'studying poll results' and 'running investigative studies.' In other words: nothing. So when the Reapers finally invaded, we were fucked.

"Day One basically crippled us. We lost Arcturus Station and the entire Systems Alliance Parliament in the process. The Second, Third and Fourth Fleets were wiped out. The First and Fifth Fleets sustained serious losses—Admiral Hackett himself sustained serious injuries and had to be placed in a medically-induced coma. And the Eighth Fleet got ambushed a few weeks later and was almost got completely destroyed."

In other words, the Alliance lost three quarters of their ships in the first month of the war. Hoo boy. "With Admiral Hackett sidelined, who took over?"

"Admiral Zhao. Heard of him?"

"Met a _Commander_ Zhao… maybe twenty, twenty-two years ago," I replied after some thinking. "Rude, impatient, arrogant, out-of-control temper?"

"Sounds about right," Williams nodded. "With all the losses to our military leadership, Zhao was next in line."

Hoo boy.

"Zhao sent the surviving ships from the First, Fifth and Eighth Fleets on a series of hit-and-run attacks. Meanwhile, the Sixth and Seventh Fleets were sent to the front to wage a more conventional war."

"Conventional war," I repeated. "But… the Reapers—"

"Outgunned and outmatched us in every possible way," Williams finished for me. "I know. Everyone knew. But Zhao insisted on fighting the war conventionally."

"What about the Crucible?"

"He dismissed that as a pipe dream. Thing was: fighting the war ship-to-ship was an even bigger pipe dream. Within six months, we'd pretty much lost what was left of the First and Eighth Fleets. Thank God Hackett came out of his coma by that point, or who knows what would've happened."

"Did he start building the Crucible _then_?" I insisted.

"Yeah. For what little good that did. What about your timeline?"

"Let's see." I frowned in concentration, trying to remember all those details. "Uh, well, Second Fleet was sacrificed at Arcturus Station so Hackett could get the Third and Fifth Fleets out. First Fleet escaped as well, though it took a real beating before they disengaged. Fourth Fleet went down in the Sol system. Eighth Fleet also got ambushed later on. But I think that was it. Sounds like the Alliance started off on a better footing, even though the First, Third and Fifth Fleets hadn't fully recovered from the Battle of the Citadel.

"Hackett got word to Charles after the Normandy pulled him off of Earth that T'Soni was on Mars. Together, they managed to pull enough data from the Prothean Archives to get plans for the Crucible."

"So they started building it right away?" Williams asked.

"They did. And they started plans to gather allies to retake Earth. Even though the other races weren't onboard and the Council was… reluctant to give their approval."

"My God," Williams said softly. "Practically three more fleets in operational condition and you started the Crucible Project right from the get-go. Can you imagine what we could have done if we pursued that strategy from the start of the war instead of desperately trying to catch up half a _year_ after the fact?"

I shook my head in commiseration. "So what did Charles do after he got off Earth?"

"He went to retrieve Liara and the Crucible plans from Mars like your Shepard did. Unfortunately, I suffered some serious injuries and got sidelined. There was this Cerberus robot who was masquerading as a scientist. Damn thing almost beat me into a coma. I sat out the first part of the war trying to recover, with no one to see but the doctors, nurses and _Councillor_ Udina. Real picnic that one. Especially with the way he wanted to make me the next human Spectre, which basically meant a glorified bodyguard and PR mouthpiece as far as he was concerned.

"Because I was sidelined, I only heard second-hand accounts of Shepard's activities. But here's what I know: when Zhao and the Council refused to endorse his plans to build the Crucible, Shepard decided to concentrate his efforts on finding allies to retake Earth. From what I heard, he got Primarch Victus off Menae after the previous Primarch—Fedorian—died. Garrus—who happened to be there as an advisor—vouched for Victus, which was really the only reason why Shepard was willing to trust him. Oh, EDI downloaded herself into a robot body. The same body that did a number on me. Damn near gave me a heart attack when I found out.

"Where was I? Right: the war effort. Primarch Victus was willing to run joint operations with Admiral Zhao, but only if he could ease the pressure on Palaven. His bright idea was to have the Alliance broker a deal with the krogan."

"That matches what I remember," I said. "Well, except for the robot beating. Alenko was the one who was assaulted and he _did_ go into a coma. But about the krogan: if Wrex—" I almost said ' _**was**_ killed,' but decided at the last moment that that might be a poor choice of words. "—never made it off Virmire," I said instead, "who met Victus on the Normandy? Assuming a diplomatic conference was held on the Normandy."

"It was," Williams confirmed. "With Wrex dead, his brother, Wreav, assumed leadership of Clan Urdnot. Wreav lived down to every krogan stereotype I'd ever heard of. He was always more interested in intimidation, warmongering and conquest—something that was made abundantly clear when Shepard visited Tuchanka to help Mordin out. Under Wreav's leadership, Clan Urdnot accelerated the assembly of conventional and nuclear weapons, until he had more WMDs than any other krogan in known history. He attacked and conquered several other clans, some of which surrendered after he nuked them. Real charmer, that one.

"Anyway, he hadn't changed. Wasn't really interested in helping the turians. Though Dalatrass Linron's behaviour didn't help—fucking politician. Victus, Wreav and Linron almost came to blows. Probably would have if Shepard hadn't arrived. Once things had calmed down, Wreav revealed why he was willing to come in the first place."

"To pursue a potential cure for the genophage," I guessed.

"Yep. Wreav hadn't really been interested in the females, other than safeguarding the fertile ones and using the rest as decoys and bait. But once he found out there were fertile females that might be _immune_ to the genophage? Suddenly he was all concerned about them.

"Anyway, Dalatrass Linron reluctantly allowed a trip to retrieve the females—so reluctantly that the STG base housing them didn't know anything until the Normandy's shuttle was on final approach for landing. Apparently there were a lot of salarians with similar misgivings—Shepard told me of a wonderful chat he had with a Lieutenant Tolan. Long story short: Cerberus attacked the base and Shepard had to scramble. He barely got his squad, Wreav, Mordin—who was Wreav's inside source, by the way—and the only surviving female back to the Normandy."

"Eve," I realized.

"Yeah. I felt sorry for her. She was like a wise mother figure to everyone, but Wreav made it pretty clear he saw her as nothing but breeding stock. I could tell that any partnership they had wouldn't be a happy one. Out of curiosity: how did Wrex and Eve get along?"

"By all accounts, much better. Sounded like Wrex was more of a visionary than his brother. Wrex had this dream that krogan could aspire to become more than bouncers and mercenaries. That they had to work together and leverage their resources to overcome the challenges of the genophage. It seemed like Eve saw the same thing in Wrex too: though she apparently might have to put her foot down every now and then."

"Yeah," Williams sighed. "I don't think I ever really looked back at how things went down on Virmire and wondered 'What if' until I saw Wreav. But by then it was too late."

"Did Dalatrass Linron promise salarian support if Shepard sabotaged the genophage cure?" I suddenly asked. "And…" I took a deep breath before plunging in. "… and did he take her offer?"

"She did and he did," Williams replied. "Both of them had reservations about the end to the genophage and what the resulting krogan expansion would mean for the rest of the galaxy."

"I'm guessing they spent more time worrying about krogan running amok and less about the crimes committed against the krogan people, their right to have a second chance and how all those concerns were academic if we couldn't win this war?"

"Pretty much. Look, Shepard didn't make this choice lightly, especially after meeting Eve. And he did have some lingering regrets about how things went down with Wrex. But the idea of a fertile krogan people unified under Wreav's bloodthirsty leadership did not sit well with him. So… yeah. He made sure the genophage was never cured. Convinced Mordin to fake his own death and secretly join the Crucible Project. Dalatrass Linron was so grateful, she handed over command of the Salarian First Fleet to Admiral Hackett. And Wreav was too stupid to know any better.

"I take it your Shepard didn't make that choice?"

"No. He fought time and time again to give the krogan the second chance they deserved. He never gave in to Dalatrass Linron's proposal—hell, he even recorded their conversation and played it for Wrex, Eve and Mordin. He battled his way through Tuchanka to cure the genophage, secure krogan loyalty for the war effort and ensure a stronger, unified coalition against the Reapers."

Williams remained silent. For which I was grateful.

* * *

It was time to see whether I'd made enough progress. I lowered my omni-tool and plugged the generator into the power core.

A crackling shimmer of energy began running over the core. Sparks began flying in the air. I hurriedly shut the generator down and ran a diagnostic.

The results were… bad. "Oh no. Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no!"

"What?"

"It should have worked. I did everything I did last time. No shortcuts, no nothing. It should have worked!"

"What happened?"

"Why didn't it work? Damn it, why didn't it—"

Williams grabbed me by the shoulders and whirled me around. "Stephen! What. happened?"

"The time machine's broken."

"I know that."

"No, I mean it's _broken_. The structural integrity of the power core is still compromised. In fact, I think the micro-fractures have gotten worse. And the containment fields… when Ksad and I were running tests, the energy harmonics of their alignment went anywhere from 85 to 93 percent. When I finally left Ilos, it was at 96 percent—don't ask me how that happened. Must've been a fluke. God, I wish it wasn't a fluke."

"Stephen."

"The alignment has dropped to 74 percent… or lower."

"Lower?"

"I don't know. The readings keep fluctuating. Last time it was this bad was when Ksad and I first powered up the core. Something must be damaged. Or broken. Or burned out. If I'm right, we won't be able to generate a stable temporal field around the time machine. Not that it matters, I guess: with the state the power core's in, it wouldn't matter if the containment fields are 100 percent aligned."

"Well, you'll have to figure something out."

"No, really?" I asked sarcastically.

"No. Really."

Something in Williams' voice made me look at her. "Why? What's going on?"

…

"Williams? You're starting to scare me."

When she finally spoke, it was in a whisper. I had to strain my ears to hear her. "I didn't want to tell you. I was afraid it would distract you and you had enough on your mind."

"Williams? What happened?"

"The Reapers are coming."

I found myself looking up at her. Way up. I must have fallen down in shock. Or maybe my knees had gotten weak and I had unconsciously sat down before I could tumble and fall. "What?"

"The Reapers are coming," she repeated.

"What? How?"

"I don't know. We got an encoded burst transmission from the SSV Hastings. Somehow, the Reapers found out where we were. The Hastings engaged the Reapers in an effort to draw them off, maybe even lead them on a wild goose chase. That was the last we heard of them… until our listening posts started going dark. We lost contact with them, one after the other. The only explanation I can think of is that the Reapers have found us… and they're coming."

Now that I was looking around, I saw the amount of activity had risen to a fever pitch. People were running around, eyes wide open. Orders were being yelled or screamed. And there were sirens going off—how did I not hear the sirens go off.

"How…" I broke off, licked my lips nervously and tried again. "How much time do we have?"

"An hour. Maybe less. I've started evacuating everyone we can spare to the Beta Site."

"There's a Beta Site?"

"One of the other planets we'd pegged as a possible fallback point. When all else failed. Problem is: we never had a chance to scout it out. No time, no one to spare, too dangerous to try. It's all or nothing."

"All or nothing," I repeated. "Sounds familiar."

"I'm staying here with a small task force to meet the Reapers. Give them a good fight."

"But you won't stand a chance," I gasped.

"No. We won't. But that doesn't matter. If the Reapers spot our ships leaving, they won't stop here. They'll just follow the ships and pick them off one by one. They need more time. And that's where my task force comes in. Hopefully they'll be so busy focusing on us; they won't notice the other ships."

She looked around furtively, then pulled me towards her. "Listen," she whispered in my ear. "I can't say this out loud, but this is it. Even if our ships make it to the Beta Site, even if it's safe, they won't be able to set up the same way we did here. They won't have the manpower, they won't have the supplies. Even if the Reapers don't wipe them out, they'll still be doomed. I need— _we_ need you to get this time machine working. Unless you think we can transport it to the Beta Site."

I hesitated. Thought it over. But I already knew the answer. "No," I shook my head. "The state the time machine is in? It's too fragile. It can't take any movement until I stabilize the containment fields. One good jolt could knock it out of alignment for good."

"Then you better get back to work," Williams decided.

"Right." I practically dove back into the innards of the time machine.

"So my son cured the genophage," I called out. "Did he have to head back to the Citadel afterwards?"

At first, I thought Williams had wandered off to mobilize her troops. Then I heard her reply—muffled as it was. "Shepard did go back to the Citadel at Councillor Esheel's request—that's the salarian Councillor, by the way. And a good thing they came when they did. Cerberus had picked that time to launch an all-out coup. It was insane. All I could do was get the Council to safety. Esheel was assassinated before we could get to him. So it was just Councillors Irissa, Quentius and Udina who I escorted to the send-off point.

"Then Shepard and his squad arrived. He said that Udina had betrayed the Council and the Citadel to Cerberus. Udina, of course, had some fabricated vid that showed Shepard killing Esheel. The vid was really good: I was half-convinced myself. But in the end, it was the man I loved versus some snivelling politician. Not a hard choice."

"In my timeline, the salarian Councillor—from the original Council—survived," I told her. "Thane gave his life to thwart the assassination attempt. And thanks to some quick thinking on his part, he was able to convince Alenko and the rest of the Council that Udina was the one who turned traitor.

"After that, Charles would have probably answered a call by the quarians," I recalled. "But first he agreed to let Alenko rejoin the crew of the Normandy. I'm guessing something similar happened with you. Unless your Charles spent some time scanning for resources, ships or personnel."

"No. Shepard did extend an offer for me to come aboard the Normandy, which I promptly accepted. And we did go to meet the quarians. But there were no detours to scan any random systems. The Reapers were too firmly entrenched, you see. It was too dangerous to do anything like that, even with the Normandy's stealth systems. Besides, there was no time for that."

"Charles found the time in my timeline," I confided. "You'd be surprised how many ships he was able to escort back to the front. Not to mention key personnel, resources, tech…"

Realizing that this conversation was quickly becoming depressing, I quickly changed the topic. "I, uh, I take it there were a few new faces when you came aboard the Normandy," I said.

"A few," Williams agreed. "Obviously, Garrus and Liara were already serving when I arrived. EDI had herself a new robot body, which took a bit of getting used to. James was hot, in a brick-red, muscular sort of way. Not really my thing, but I could see how he'd turn a lot of ladies' heads. And then there was Javik, who could give the asari a few pointers in how to be superior over all those lesser, primitive beings."

Nothing like Ksad, then. Just goes to show that not all individuals of a given species were alike. "What happened with the quarians?"

"Those idiots decided a galactic war would be the perfect time to start their own little war to retake their homeworld," Williams spat. "Seemed it went pretty well… until the geth sided with the Reapers and it all went south. We had to board a geth dreadnought and disable it to give the quarians a chance to consolidate their fleets. About the only upside was that Tali came back."

"My son did the same," I confirmed. "Did you find a geth in the drive core? One the Reapers were using to broadcast their control signal?"

"Yeah. Some geth VI consisting of, like, a thousand programs stuffed into a custom platform… or whatever the hell that thing said."

"1,183 geth programs, working together to form a single gestalt entity," I corrected. "Same in my timeline. _That_ was Legion, by the way."

"Yippee. Anyway, we barely got out before the damn quarians blew up the dreadnought—with us still inside. Sadly, that wasn't the end of things: the Reapers still had a base on Rannoch, the quarian homeworld. Jamming towers prevented us from blowing it to kingdom come from orbit. While the techies figured out a workaround, we rescued one of the quarian admirals who'd crash-landed on Rannoch while we were dealing with the dreadnought. Then we went down to take out the Reaper base.

"You might know most of the details by this point, so I'll summarize: we touched down on Rannoch, kicked all kinds of geth ass, had a collective heart attack when we discovered the Reaper 'base' was a bonafide _Reaper_ , but managed to blow the damn thing up anyway. Unfortunately, the geth VI had the bright idea of upgrading all its fellow geth. That wasn't gonna happen, so we stopped it from proceeding with the upload. The quarians managed to figure out how to shoot their ships' guns and finished off the geth."

Hearing that shocked me so much, I momentarily paused my work. "That… that's not what happened," I said. "My son tried to broker a peace between the quarians and the geth—several times. He found out—both from Legion and from contact with the geth servers—that the quarians had started the war that drove them into exile by recklessly pursuing AI technology and attempting to commit genocide when the geth became self-aware. All that, when the geth had no hostile intent towards their quarians and were perfectly content with co-existing with their creators. Shepard managed to finally get through to the quarians and convince them to stand down, allowing Legion to elevate his people to true sentience. As a result, the quarians were free to finally return to their homeworld with geth assistance, and Shepard gained both the quarians and the geth as allies to fight the Reapers."

"Seriously?"

"The geth never wanted to fight!" I insisted. "The quarians would never have been driven into exile if they had just owned up to what they did in the first place! They were fighting the wrong war all along!"

"Huh. Geth as our allies. I… I really can't picture that."

Clearly. "So what happened after you guys secured the quarians' aid."

"Councillor Irissa contacted Shepard, insisting he return to the Citadel for a one-on-one chat. Apparently the asari discovered that acting superior, being condescending and generally doing squat _wasn't_ a good strategy for dealing with the Reapers. Who knew? Now that their defences had crumbled and Thessia itself was being invaded, they'd finally decided that maybe they should contribute a little more to the war effort. Seemed they had been hiding a Prothean artifact inside one of their temples and it might help out with the Crucible Project.

"So off to Thessia we went. By the time we'd arrived, the damage was done. The whole damn planet was pretty much aflame. You know what the scary thing was? Liara didn't react at all. She just watched her homeworld burn without even blinking an eye. If there was any doubt that the Liara I knew was gone, the events of that day settled them once and for all.

"We fought through I don't know how many Reapers. So many asari gave their lives to help clear the way to the Temple of Athame. Once there, we began exploring, gathering clue after clue. Kinda had to, considering that everyone else was dead.

"Slowly but surely, the truth came out: that the asari had access to a Prothean beacon and had kept it a secret for thousands of years. That's why they were so advanced and superior: they had been cheating this whole time. More to the point, the Prothean beacon—and the VI it contained—was the key to finding the Catalyst—the last thing we needed to complete the Crucible.

"But then Kai Leng—the Illusive Man's personal assassin—showed up. Turned out that he'd gotten to the Temple first. Slaughtered the asari who were waiting for us. All because his boss, the Illusive Man, had some crazy notion of wanting to control the Reapers. For the good of humanity, of course. Well, once we told him where he could put his crazy fantasy, he told Kai Leng to get him the VI.

"We fought. We got the upper hand, or so we thought. But then… I don't know. Somehow, he turned the tables on us. Overwhelmed us with sheer firepower and snatched the VI while we were pinned down. And then… as he flew off, he fired one parting shot. Caused the whole temple to collapse. Liara and I were lucky to make it out alive. Shepard…"

My heart sank. "No," I whispered.

"I… I'm sorry, Stephen. Shepard didn't make it. He died that day as the temple fell. And with him went any hope we had of winning this war.

"Without that Prothean VI, we never finished the Crucible. And things started to go downhill. We took more and more casualties. We lost more and more ships. More colonies. More planets. Slowly but surely, we lost ground. We would have surrendered, but the Reapers didn't do surrender.

"In the end, we fell back here. Gathered the last of our forces, travelled to this desolate place and waited. For the end that would inevitably come."

* * *

My son had died.

It was all I could think about. My son had died. I had tried to make things better for him, to give him a better, happier life and all I had really done was condemned him to a horrible life and a lonely death. Worse, I had condemned the rest of the galaxy to be wiped out once again at the hands of the Reapers. Life as I knew it was about to be snuffed out, and it was all my fault.

In the end, it was the loud explosion that shook me from my self-recriminations. I don't know if it was the noise that made me jump or the fact that I could hear the earth move under my feet. As I pulled my head out of the bowels of the time machine, I heard another boom. And another. "What was that?" I yelped.

Williams was already talking with someone on the comm. Her face was grim long before she finished the conversation. "Surface-to-air cannons. We've engaged the Reapers."

"They're here?"

"They're here. We'll do what we can, but honestly? Our artillery was meant to take out shuttles. Gunships. Maybe even the odd destroyer. Against the Reapers? They won't even leave a scratch. So the Reapers are going to land any moment—"

A giant meteor—or so it seemed—flew out of the sky and landed somewhere in the distance. It must have hit something, because a huge plume of flame and smoke roared into the sky. "—assuming they don't just bomb us to smithereens from orbit," she finished.

I don't know how long I stood there. Frozen to the spot. But somehow, I forced myself to connect the portable generator to the power core. A crackle of energy ran over the core… before coalescing into a single bolt that lashed out. Williams and I ducked just in the nick of time as the beam flew over our heads, struck a nearby cargo container… and disintegrated it into a pile of ash.

Reaching out, I forcibly pulled the cables loose. I stood there numbly, watching the smoke waft up from the ash. Dimly, I heard someone say something. Was she talking to me, I wondered. Couldn't be: I didn't hear my name. And it didn't sound like her in any case.

The earth seemed to shake again. And again.

"That was Daniels," Williams said. "That last strike hit the base's reactor. The power relays are overloading. We're looking at a core breach in less than three minutes."

"Great!" I laughed bitterly. "That's just great. It took Ksad and I days to get the time machine running. Maybe a week. I can't fix it in three minutes!"

"You've got to try," Williams urged.

Numbly, with shaking fingers, I linked my omni-tool to the power core and tried to reinitialize one of the subroutines. The sharp beep told me my attempt had been rejected. "It's not working," I said aloud. "Why isn't it working? _Why won't it work?_ "

I slammed my hand against the hull of the time machine and stepped away, tears of frustration welling in my eyes.

"Stephen," Williams said.

" _I FAILED!_ " I shouted at her. The tears were streaming down my face, but I didn't care. _"I FAILED MY SON! I FAILED ALL OF YOU! MY SON IS DEAD BECAUSE OF ME! AND NOW WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE AND IT'S ALL MY FAULT!"_

"Mr. Shepard!" Williams barked. She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me until I shut up. "I've spent the last three years in hell. Three years hoping that someone would come along, something would be discovered that would turn things around. It wasn't until you came along until my prayers were answered. I still believe that. Stephen: I still believe."

"Don't you see?" I asked her bitterly, shaking myself loose. "All your hopes and prayers won't change the fact that we're trapped here. I made a mess of history and now we're doomed and it's—"

"You tried to change history for the better. You have to change it again. Because somebody has to, and that somebody is you."

"It can't be done, Williams. I told you—"

"No," Williams interrupted. "You told me you can't get a field going around the time machine. Fine. We have to accept that. There's nothing we can do. But you didn't always travel through time using this doohickey, right? What did you tell me about the first time you powered it up? When you were in the past, with that Prothean? You were hit by some kind of energy beam that sent you to the future, right?"

"Right," I said slowly.

"Is there a way to repeat that? To generate another beam that could send whatever it hit through time?"

The more I thought about it, the more I realized she might be right. "Yes. Yes, there is. I can reduce the size of the containment field to surround just the power core rather than the time machine itself. The decreased energy requirements will be less of a strain on the core's structural integrity and should make it easier to get a stable field alignment. Then I just need to reset the phase emitters to project a temporal field outward as a beam instead of inwards towards anything within the field. Granted, whoever gets hit will be going on a one-way journey—"

"But if this works, we'll only need one trip anyway," Williams finished. "You'd better hurry, though. We only have—"

" _Warning: reactor core breach in sixty seconds."_

I was already yanking things out, rerouting connections and tapping in commands with a speed and efficiency I would never have believed possible at my age. I didn't have time to double-check my work.

" _Warning: reactor core breach in forty-five seconds."_

"Stephen," Williams said, a hint of nervousness entering her voice for the first time. "How's it going?"

"I think I'm done," I replied. Turning around, I plugged the generator into the power core and began charging it up. "Let's see… yes… yes… power core's accepting the charge… structural integrity is holding… containment field is at 96 percent alignment… now let's see if I can—"

My omni-tool suddenly went dark. "Oh. Oh that's just great."

"What happened?"

"Omni-tool's dead. No time for a reboot." Which meant I needed another option. Like…

" _Warning: reactor core breach in thirty seconds."_

"Come with me!" I told Williams. "Now!"

We raced into the time machine. I woke up the computer console and began a search, hoping that my hunch was right. "I was hoping to set up a remote interface, but my omni-tool just had to quit on me. So we'll have to do it the old fashioned way."

"Fine," Williams. "So… what are you doing?"

"Normally I'd have to calculate where and when to go," I said aloud as my fingers flew over the console. "But if I'm lucky, there should still be a record of the last few jumps. If I can find the right one, I can skip all that. And…

"Eureka!" I crowed. "This is it!"

Selecting the coordinates, I began entering in the next set of commands. As I typed away, I glanced at Williams. "I'm programming in the temporal sequence and making the final changes to the operational settings. Problem is: once the sequence begins, the beam will fire immediately in one single burst. I'll never be able to start it manually and get in front of the power core in time."

" _Warning: reactor core breach in fifteen seconds."_

"Which is where I come in," Williams concluded. "You get in place, I press the button."

"Exactly. This button, to be precise." I finished my work, pointed at said button, headed for the exit… and paused. Even with time running out, I felt it had to be done. "It was an honour to meet you… Ashley."

"The honour was mine, Stephen." Impulsively, she ignored the hand I extended towards her and pulled me into a fierce hug. "Godspeed."

" _Warning: reactor core breach in ten… nine…"_

"Now go!"

"… _eight… seven…"_

I rushed back outside.

"… _six… five…"_

"Hit it!" I yelled.

"… _four…"_

Once again, I saw arcs of blue energy writhe over the power core. I watched as the energy concentrated on a single point.

"… _three…"_

I saw the beam shoot out. Felt my stomach turn inside out.

"… _two…"_

As everything faded away, I pumped my fists into the air.

"YES!"


	4. Familia Supra Omnia

_**Author's Note**_ _:_

 _Here it is: the final chapter of Heroes of Future Past. This fanfic has grown far beyond what I originally envisioned for it. I couldn't have done it without the (silent) encouragement of my readers and the comments of my reviewers. So if you're reading this: give yourself a pat on the back! And for those of you who have been following The Hero Rises and have been wondering how long you'll have to wait, rest assured that your patience will be rewarded, as I will indeed be turning my attention back to my particular take on Mass Effect 3._

 _Please note that we will go back to the perspective of the other Shepard, the wisecracking kleptomaniac and pyromaniac we all know and love._

* * *

 **Chapter 4: Familia Supra Omnia**

I don't know when the last time I had talked was. Or when I last asked a question. Or blinked. I know. Shocking. The guy who normally could never keep his mouth shut, who was always in your face with a question or a wisecrack, hadn't said anything in the last couple hours.

In my defence, I don't usually find myself listening to my long-lost father. My father, who hadn't abandoned me because I had failed him or done something wrong. In fact, he had regarded _himself_ as a failure, both for not knowing how to be a parent and for running away for what had seemed like a good reason at the time. He was so guilt-ridden, in fact, that he had tried to change history. For me. Oh, he had some help—from an actual Prothean. The same Prothean who had been used as a pattern for Vigil, the VI I had encountered on Ilos. He needed the help, after his first attempt had accidentally sent him to the future—where he had saved my life! Wow! But then he tried again. And he had succeeded, for a time.

But all of that paled in comparison to what had come next. The slaver attack on Mindoir. The… the 'other me,' for lack of a better phrase, becoming the sole survivor. And all the other things that followed.

Let's start with the biggest change that occurred in this alternate timeline: Ash was alive. Ashley Williams, who had been one of my first squadmates ever since Saren and his geth buddies laid waste to Eden Prime. She'd fought alongside me all the way from Feros to Noveria and everywhere in between. In the end, she gave her life to destroy Saren's krogan cloning facility on Virmire, allowing the Normandy to escape with me, Kirrahe and the other men and women under our command. In this other timeline, though, she had lived. Lived to see a nightmarish future unfold before her. After getting her freak on with... the other me. Some darker, alternate mirror universe version of me—who may or may not have had a goatee. Hey, it could happen.

Kaidan was the one who gave his life in this alternate timeline, but at a terrible cost. He had died, along with Kirrahe, the other STG operatives... and Wrex. Wrex had died—no, not died. He had been killed. By Ash. Who had been ordered to pull the trigger by Mirror Me. Yeah, that's right. Seems Mirror Me told Ash to put Wrex down if he couldn't be made to see reason. Apparently my evil counterpart never made much of an effort to know Wrex. He never made much of an effort to know a lot of nonhumans. Because he didn't trust them. Not after Mindoir.

The Council had been killed. They had died on the Destiny Ascension when it was destroyed during the Battle of the Citadel. All because Mirror Me told Hackett to hold the Alliance forces in reserve to fight against Sovereign. I guess I could see some tactical reasons for that course of action, but I could also see why the other races gave the Alliance—and humanity—a lot of flak afterwards. Apparently they didn't approve of the governmental body for Citadel space being sacrificed like some chess piece. Small wonder that their replacements gave Anderson such a hard time.

And then there was Liara. She was alive... technically. Physiologically. But she wasn't the Liara I knew. Anything that might have passed for a conscience or a soul had died alongside Mirror Me when the Collectors ambushed the Normandy.

At least some things had stayed the same. Udina was still an ass. Anderson was still awesome. And my squadmates had remained the same dysfunctional bunch of misfits—well, those that were actually awake. I can't believe Mirror Me never woke up Grunt. And I really can't believe he was crazy enough to sell Legion to TIMmy instead of waking him up. I mean, yeah he had an arms-length relationship with nonhumans. Yeah, any issues he had with geth would be pretty high after fighting them on and off during his hunt for Saren. But getting TIMmy on the comm and saying "Hey, buddy, got an intact geth here. How much can I get for this thing?" Wow. Just... wow. I don't get it. I just don't get it.

Just like I couldn't understand how Mirror Me didn't do all he could to prep the Normandy for the assault on the Collector base. I mean, he knew it was coming. He knew he'd have to do it. And it sounded like his squadmates gave him the opportunity to make those upgrades. But he never did. He didn't even gather the necessary resources. Yeah, it was boring as hell. Yeah, I probably went overboard. But considering I came out of that suicide mission without losing a single squadmate… maybe my obsession wasn't so crazy after all. Just putting it out there…

The Reaper War was a whole 'nother mess. It sounded like the Alliance had been hit even harder in that other timeline. Not only did they lose the Alliance Parliament and several other military leaders, they'd lost more ships and fleets than we did in my timeline. To make matters worse, they effectively wasted the first six months because Admiral Zhao—good God, someone had actually made that arrogant ass an _admiral_?—thought shooting broadsides at the Reapers would be more effective than building the Crucible.

Even when Admiral Hackett recovered from his injuries to take over the war effort, things hadn't gone the way I remembered. In general, the Alliance didn't gather nearly as many ships, personnel and other resources—either for the Crucible or for the overall war effort. But as far as I was concerned, there were four major differences.

First, Mirror Me sabotaged the genophage cure. He didn't trust Urdnot Wreav who had unified the various clans after Wrex's demise by brute force, warfare and the occasional nuke. He didn't trust krogan period, even after meeting Eve. And he couldn't resist the offer Dalatrass Crankypants made. So he sabotaged the cure, tricked Wreav and the other krogan into joining the war effort and got some more salarian ships in the process. It was… horrifying to hear that my counterpart had been complicit in condemning the krogan to extinction. All because he didn't trust nonhumans. The only upside, as far as I was concerned, was the fact that Mordin had lived.

Cerberus wreaked more havoc on the Citadel during the coup attempt in the other timeline. While they failed to gain control, there was a greater cost: the salarian councillor was assassinated by Kai Leng. Thane was unable to intercede as, thanks to Mirror Me's inability or unwillingness to upgrade the Normandy, he had died during the Collector base assault.

And then there's the quarians. They started a war with the geth as well and almost got the entire Flotilla wiped out, because some things are destined to be universal constants no matter what timeline you're in. Mirror Me had to pull their hermetically-sealed butts out of the fire by storming a geth dreadnought and unhooking a geth that was being used as a Reaper comm relay. Said geth was not Legion, of course, because Mirror Me had the bright idea of selling him to TIMmy. But that's not all! No, Mirror Me just had to continue his short-sighted, narrow-minded idiocy to its natural tragic conclusion by siding with the quarians and ultimately helping them wipe out the geth. Because forcing the quarians to take a good hard look at their sins, brokering a truce between the quarians and the geth, and getting both races to join the allied war effort was just a silly quirk of mine.

With all the horrible, tragic choices that were made, I honestly couldn't see how my counterpart could've pulled off a win. Any victory he managed to achieve would undoubtedly have been a Pyrrhic one. In the end, he didn't even get that: apparently he died in the Temple of Athame when Kai Leng ambushed his squad and snatched the Prothean VI from his grasp. After that... everything went downhill. The Alliance lost colony after colony, planet after planet, until they ultimately retreated to some last-ditch refuge—and even that was discovered by the Reapers shortly after my dad arrived. If he hadn't found a way to get one last run out of the time machine, the human race would've been wiped out.

Speaking of my dad—everything he did was for me. Well, me and Mom. The point is: he tried to change history in an attempt to give me a better life. He may have been misguided, and his actions came this close to creating a horrible dystopian future for us all, but part of me couldn't help but feel... grateful? Touched? I mean, he was doing it _for me_. He was thinking _of me_. And when he realized the error of his ways, he tried to fix it—and almost succumbed to despair when it looked like he'd only compounded any mistakes he'd made. Because he felt guilty. Guilty for not being there for me. Everything he had done, for better or for worse, was fueled in part because of that guilt. As someone who had had more than a little guilt weighing down his shoulders over the last few years, I couldn't help but sympathize with his plight.

With a start, I realized he was asking me something. It was possible he'd been trying for some time. "Sorry," I apologized. "I didn't catch that. I, uh, was a bit... I was thinking—well, more processing than thinking—that was... quite a trip."

I winced. 'Quite a trip.' Did I seriously just say that? Wow.

"That's quite all right," Dad smiled. "I did have an eventful and harrowing journey—which I just unloaded on you in one go. That isn't something you can process easily."

That was when my stomach gurgled. Dad's stomach made similar noises. "Maybe it would be easier to process if we had some food," I suggested.

"Agreed."

* * *

"So what happened after you left the Alpha Site?" I asked after we'd had some dinner. "Where did you go? When did you go?"

"Mindoir," Dad replied. "2166."

"Wait," I interrupted. "You said when you left Ksad on Ilos, you travelled forward through time to Mindoir in 2166. Weren't you worried that by travelling back to a place and time that you'd already been to, that you'd wind up materializing in the same space as the time machine? You could have become fused with the time machine itself! Or with yourself!"

"I did think of that," Dad said. "That's why I adjusted the coordinates to arrive slightly to the left and a few minutes after the time machine and my... earlier counterpart. The idea being to avoid materializing in an area that was already occupied with something else. At least, I hoped I would avoid that scenario."

"You hoped?" I repeated.

"I'd only used the time machine a few times," Dad reminded me. "And it wasn't as if I had time to double-check my work."

That was true. He was working against the clock, what with a nearby power core about to go critical and all. "Still, it must've worked since..." I trailed off and waved my hands towards him.

"Yeah, it did work," Dad sighed. "Much to my relief."

"So what happened next?"

"The first thing I did was look to my left and flinch. Mainly because I was a mere foot away from a wall of solid stone. After all I did to avoid becoming part of the time machine, I almost became part of Mindoir's network of caves. Once my heart stopped pounding, I managed to look to my right. The first thing I saw was the time machine. The second thing I saw…. was myself. Slack-jawed and staring at me.

"'Oh boy,' I heard my… past self, for lack of a better phrase, say.

"'Hi there," I said. 'I'm, uh, you. Well, you from the future. And I'm here to tell you… not to do what you want to do. Because it's not going to work. It'll end badly. I know this is a lot to ask, but you have to listen to me. If you go ahead with what you're planning to do, everything and everyone you know will be destroyed.'"

It was a little weird hearing my dad play out this conversation with a past version of himself. It almost looked like he was talking to himself. I wondered if this was what crazy people looked like.

"My past self stared at me in disbelief," Dad continued, blissfully unaware of my current train of thought. "At least, I thought it was disbelief. Maybe he thought I was an impostor trying to spin him a tall tale. An impostor who bore an uncanny likeness to him, but still. All right. If he needed convincing, I could convince him.

"'I'm you, Stephen. I know what's driving you right now. You just left Ksad in the catacombs of Ilos after finally fixing the time machine behind you. You fixed it to travel through time and change history. Because you felt guilty about abandoning your son. For all the good reasons you had about evading the Alliance and their plans to pervert and weaponize your research into greyboxes, you felt guilty for leaving your son to grow up without a father. You wanted to give him the childhood he never had, one with a united family.

"'Well, it worked. For four years. You, Hannah and Charles were a family for four years, here on Mindoir. Until a bunch of slavers—batarians, mostly—attacked the colony. You escaped, thanks to the time machine. But most of the colony was wiped out or forced into slavery. Charles survived… in a way. That single moment changed everything. He grew up embittered and suspicious and distrustful of nonhumans, thanks to that pivotal moment in his history. It informed and shaped and guided a disastrous and tragic series of choices.'"

"I quickly summarized what I learned from Williams when I went forward into that horrible dystopian future, the one I'd inadvertently created in an attempt to make a better world. 'So you see," I concluded, "what you're planning won't work. All you'll do is destroy the best part of our son, the part that let him see the good in people. The part that gave him the courage to reach out across the divide and trust people, no matter who or where they came from. And in doing so, you'll doom the galaxy as we know it. The Reapers will win—again.'"

"'That doesn't mean I shouldn't send those e-mails,' my past self said, grasping at one last shred of hope. 'I can still send them and reunite my family. And once we're together, I have four years to figure out how to get us somewhere else.'"

"'That…' I trailed off and thought about it. 'That might not be a bad idea.'"

* * *

"No, that's a bad idea," I disagreed. "In fact, it's a terrible idea."

"It seems that way," Dad admitted. "But at the time, I thought otherwise. From my perspective, sending those e-mails led to four happy, wonderful years together. It was only after the slavers came that everything went to hell. So, the more I thought about it, the more I thought that maybe I could remove the bad part but still keep the good. And if there was a way to do that, shouldn't I at least try?"

"Try to have your cake and eat it too?"

"Essentially, yes."

I tapped my head. "Well, considering how I don't remember any of that, clearly it didn't stick."

"No, no it didn't."

* * *

Dad rubbed his eyes wearily. "The plan was simple. Step one: send the e-mails debunking the efficacy of greybox technology. Step two: get the family back together on Mindoir. Step three: get off Mindoir as soon as possible."

"I'm guessing there was a certain vagueness and lack of detail to the last one," I deadpanned.

"I was going to make it up as I went along." Dad paused for a moment. "In hindsight, it's a move right out of your playbook. Huh."

Who says you can't teach old dogs new tricks?

"My past self and I began composing and sending out e-mails. I'll spare you all the arguments we had over phrasing, syntax, typos and other grammatical matters. What's important is that, after a couple e-mails, the timeline changed—complete with the now-familiar and still-unpleasant sensation of my insides going through the wringer—and I found myself on Mindoir with you and your mother.

"To my surprise, I still remembered everything that happened—travelling through time, meeting Ksad, talking with Williams and so on—with perfect clarity. I found that odd: you'd expect that changing the timeline would mean that horrible dystopian future never happened, which would mean that my memories would change. Unless I hadn't succeeded in truly changing anything after all.

"With that unsettling possibility—amongst many—in mind, I tried to get the three of us away from Mindoir. That didn't really work out, though. Hannah never understood why I was suddenly so adamant on leaving when I'd spent the previous year supporting her career change and our choice of destination. Our relationship became increasingly acrimonious until, one day, we separated. Hardly the happy childhood I had envisioned. Even worse, you and Hannah never left Mindoir, so you were still there when the slavers attacked.

"After the carnage, I used the time machine to travel back a few years. I talked to my counterpart and we agreed to try again. This time, I tried to be more subtle. Less pushy. Apparently I was too subtle because we were still on Mindoir four years later. The week before the slavers were destined to attack, I made my way to the time machine and tried again.

"The third time, we actually got off Mindoir. Unfortunately, an Alliance frigate suffered a drive core malfunction over the colony we travelled to. You were exposed to the eezo discharge, developed an acute and particularly aggressive form of leukemia, and passed away a few months later. So I went back to the time machine and tried again.

"The fourth time, we got off Mindoir and went to the same colony where the frigate's drive core malfunctioned. This time, I knew enough to get you the proper treatment. After your leukemia was successfully treated, we discovered that you had become a biotic. I think the power went to your head or something because, by the time you had enlisted, you had become a sex-obsessed, chauvinistic narcissist who managed to offend every other person. About halfway through your Basic training, I decided to try again."

"The fifth time, I got the family to Eden Prime. I was a little concerned, given what I knew would happen, but I thought it would be okay. You certainly were happy. Happy enough that we invited the Bartowskis to join us. Unfortunately, the transport they were on miscalculated their approach vector and crashed into the starport. There were… there were no survivors."

"Oh God," I said. The thought of Ellie getting snuffed out was… I didn't want to… I couldn't bear the thought. I really couldn't. The fact that I didn't remember that tragedy meant that Dad reversed that through another one of his... "Just how many times did you try to change time?" I asked.

Dad rubbed his eyes again. "Six hundred and seven."

For a moment, I thought I was hearing things. "Um. What?"

"Six hundred and seven. That's how many times I tried to change time after narrowly escaping death and destruction in that nightmarish time. 607 times. I tried, Charles. I really did. Over and over again. But no matter what I tried, no matter what I thought up, nothing I did worked.

"And then it finally hit me."

* * *

My dad stood up and began to pace. Guess he'd been sitting for too long and had to stretch his legs. "I'll admit I hadn't completely given up the idea of creating a better future for you," he began. "For all of us. But I now had empirical evidence that making such an extreme change was not the way to go about it. So before I even considered making any more changes to the timeline, I had to reverse or 'reset' the changes I'd already made. One last time.

"I arrived at the desired time and place on Mindoir—by this point, it had become almost routine. The hardest part was keeping track of the spatial and temporal coordinates from the last 607 jumps. I waited for my past self to say 'Oh boy' before turning around and launching into my spiel:

"'Hi there,' I said. 'I'm you. From the future. I know you're planning to send some e-mails about our greybox research in the hopes of creating an alternate timeline where you, Hannah and Charles are together as a family. Well, I'm here to tell you it doesn't work out that way. In fact, it'll end badly. Really badly.

"'You see, this whole nightmare occurred because I sent all those e-mails about my greybox research. The moment I did that, history branched off into an alternate timeline. A drastically different timeline. One that started off great: we spent more time together as a family, Hannah decided to leave active service and we settled down on Mindoir for four wonderful years. Unfortunately, Mindoir was doomed to be attacked by slavers. Our son was the only survivor.

"'That was where things went horribly wrong. Charles became a traumatized, suspicious man with mildly xenophobic tendencies. He spent more time reacting to events and keeping people at arm's length than being proactive and making connections. He made… well, I'm sorry to say he made a couple bad decisions. Those decisions and the resulting consequences just snowballed. In the end… our son died. Billions of people died. The Reapers won. And humanity was on the verge of going extinct. I know this is a lot to ask, but you have to listen to me. If you go ahead with what you're planning to do, everything and everyone you know will be destroyed.'

"Once again, I explained what had happened, from our time on Mindoir to the slaver attack to the accidental trip forward through time to everything Williams had told me.

"It took my past self a while to digest all that. 'But now I know what happened,' he said at last, just as I knew he would. 'I know what to do and what to avoid.'

"'You'd think so,' I sighed. 'Certainly I thought so. The problem is that you never know what will happen. You can't extrapolate and predict every possible outcome from the choices you'd make. Which means any changes you make will have unforeseen consequences—many of which won't benefit those you love. And I've tried. 607 times, I tried.'

"'Well, that was you. Alone. Let's put our heads together. So we need to get Hannah a new job as soon as possible. Now we know that Hannah can be a stubborn one, but if we put our foot down—'

"'We'll start fighting, our marriage will dissolve and Hannah will still be on Mindoir with Charles when the slavers attack,' I finished. 'I already tried that.'

"'Oh. Well. We'll have to put our foot down more gently.'

"I liked how my past self got to the idea of switching to the plural form of address. Showed he was getting onboard with this whole time travel and talking to various versions of himself idea. Still, I had to disabuse him of the notion that he could fix our mistakes by making more of the same. 'Tried that too,' I replied. 'We were still on Mindoir when the slavers came.'

"'Maybe not that gently. Did you ever get off Mindoir at all?'

"'We did. Unfortunately a frigate orbiting the colony we went to had a drive core malfunction. Charles was one of the hundreds of people exposed to the eezo discharge. It gave him cancer. He…' I couldn't finish. Thankfully, I didn't have to.

"My past self spent the next few hours offering proposal after proposal. As it turned out, I knew what would happen each and every time. I know there are an infinite number of possibilities out there, but apparently 607 attempts to explore those possibilities can cover a fair amount of ground.

"'Well, I give up,' my past self finally said. 'You got any bright ideas?'

"'One,' I replied. 'All of my attempts to change time started by sending those e-mails. What if… I didn't?'"

"'So you're going to give up trying to improve our son's life?'

"'Oh, I'm still going to try. I just won't send those e-mails.'

"'But if you don't send those e-mails, then the Alliance will still think greyboxes can be weaponized,' my past self frowned. 'We'll still have to go on the run. That means you'll abandon our son.'

"'I know.'

"'Well, that sounds like a horrible idea. He'll grow up all alone.'

"'Yes and no,' I replied. 'I know he'll grow up without us. He'll grow up plagued with all those doubts and questions about why we left and whether he was to blame. And when we meet him—because I'm determined to meet him—I'll have a lot of apologizing to do. But I think you're forgetting something: yes, he'll grow up without a father. But he won't grow up alone. He'll have Hannah. And he'll have Eleanor—you know those two are thick as thieves.

"'More importantly, he'll grow up to be a man we can be proud of. The kind of man who stops to listen to other people's problems because he genuinely wants to help them. The kind of man who never lets his preconceptions get in the way of learning new things or getting to know new people. The kind of man who always tries to see the best in people.

"'That man was able to get humanity and the other races close—so damn close—to winning the war against the Reapers. And in the 607 times I tried—608 if you count my initial attempt, the one that led to that disastrous future—and I never came close to seeing our son grow to become that man. I could probably try another 607 or 608 times with no success. Maybe this time, I—we—should try something different."

* * *

I had been listening to the latest bombshell my dad dropped on me, most of which involved him talking to himself—and not in the crazy, loony bin kind of way. Trying to wrap my brain around it was challenging, to say the least.

"Okay," I finally said. "Let me see if I got this straight: ever since you left me and Mom, you've been in hiding. You made your way to Ilos and found the time machine. Eventually you managed to get it to work, only to go back in time to the time of the Protheans, just after most of the survivors took that one-way trip to the Citadel. You and Ksad got it to work again, after a failed start-up attempt that sent you to some point in the future where you managed to save me. Then you went forward in time to change history, which ended up a slaver attack and another accidental trip forward in time, where you met some alternate version of Ash and found out how horribly wrong the future turned out. After a few false starts, you managed to get sent back in time—minus the time machine. You met your past self—the one that had just left Ksad—who convinced you to try and change history. But after 607 tries, you realized that nothing you did made things any better."

"That pretty much sums it up, yeah," Dad nodded.

"Wow."

"Yeah."

It took a while before I can ask my next question: "So… what happened next?"

"Well, everything around me did its little shuffling act as the timeline adjusted itself. I should add that each time I had tried to change history before, my body felt like it had been twisted inside out, torn apart and painfully reassembled. But this time, I swear every part of my body went through the ringer. I could feel each muscle tear itself apart, every bone in my body shatter into tiny fragments and I was sure most of my organs imploded. I could feel my blood burn and bleed throughout my broken body as it hemorrhaged. I could feel my bile and stomach acid burn as it roared through my shredded guts. I could feel the pain blast through any preconceived limits I thought I had met, introducing me to new levels of agony.

"And then I felt all that again as my body forcibly rebuilt itself—or perhaps the universe was forcibly integrating me into the new timeline I had created—ignoring any feeble protests I might have given, had I been aware of anything other than the never-ending pain. It was a comfort when I finally passed out.

"When I came to, I found myself lying in a pile of sweat, vomit and more than a little blood. It took a while for the pain to subside to the point where I could pull myself out of all that muck, and even more before I could muster the strength to pull myself to my feet. Eventually, I did. That was when I discovered that the time machine _I_ used to return to the past one last time had disappeared. My guess was that once my past self chose _not_ to send any e-mails, everything that happened afterwards—including the use of the time machine—never happened. All that was left was me and the other time machine, the one I used to go forward in time after leaving Ksad."

"So one of the time machines vanished because the choices you made—or didn't make, as it turned out? Because it came from a future that never existed? So… how could you retain your memories and experiences of all those choices and consequences?"

"Yep."

"How does that make sense?" I groaned.

"Well, I was directly exposed to raw temporal energy from the time machine," Dad reminded me. "Twice. Plus I made a lot of trips through time. It's possible that that cumulative exposure had some kind of unintended side effect. Maybe I don't age as quickly as I used to. Or maybe my body reacts differently to the ravages of time."

That would explain one discrepancy that had been nagging at me. Miranda had told me that, according to his medical scans, Dad was about a decade older than he should be. Yet he'd spent way more time than that during his six hundred-plus attempts to change history. Maybe he did age slower than the average human. Most medical scans don't factor in the effects of time travel, after all.

"It's a little confusing," Dad said sympathetically. "But I really do remember everything that happened. The hows and whys… all I've got to offer are my best guesses."

"Fine," I sighed, deciding to give up all this time travel/paradox stuff before my head exploded. "I guess my next question is… what happened after the Time Travel Hot Potato?"

"The first thing I did was jump a decade into the future. Showing up on Mindoir again was fine—I wasn't worried about running into any past version of myself. The important thing was that I arrive in the year 2176. Once I confirmed that I had arrived in the right year, I surreptitiously contacted an acquaintance of yours from Basic training: Bryce Larkin."

"Yeah, I know him," I confirmed. "Why'd you get in touch with Bryce?"

"By that point, he was an operative with Alliance Intelligence. Worked several operations for Eli David, who you also knew."

Oh yeah.

"Despite that association, he still had some morals—and he shared my concern that anyone working with Alliance Intelligence in general, and Eli David in particular, would be… marked over time. He also shared my good opinion of you. So when I told him that Eli David was looking to recruit you, I knew that he'd do what he could to make sure you avoided his fate."

"What did he do?"

"Nothing much. Just used a computer to access an unsecured extranet website, thus allowing me to access Alliance records and re-assign you to Elysium."

I suddenly had a flashback to a conversation I had with Bryce on Omega, where he revealed that he had been responsible for sending me to Elysium, knowing that it would be hit and that my actions repelling them would draw a lot of unwanted attention and notoriety—enough to cross me off Triple-D's recruitment list. At the time, I suspected Bryce had had some help. Now I knew. "In your original timeline, before all this time travel stuff, was I working for Alliance Intelligence?"

"Officially, no. Unofficially, you did do several missions for David off the books. You only stopped after the Council began considering you to be the first human Spectre and David grew wary of all that extra attention. I thought that drawing you into the spotlight earlier would prevent him from using you at all."

Well, he succeeded for the most part—an assignment or two notwithstanding. "So I never went to Elysium the first time around?"

Dad shook his head. "No. And several hundred people died—people who lived because you were sent to Elysium after I got in touch with Bryce."

Huh. So it was really Dad I had to thank for all that grief. Once upon a time, I might've hit him. Or yelled at him. How things had changed.

"How did you get in touch with Bryce?" I wanted to know. "Did you talk to him in person?"

Dad shook his head. "Anonymously. Over the extranet."

Figures. "You must have had to introduce yourself as somebody. Give some kind of name or alias or handle."

"Yeah, I did. He knew me as 'Orion'."

I stared at him in shock. Orion. Son of a bitch. "You're kidding."

"Nope."

"Orion."

"Yep."

"So you were the one feeding me tidbits of intel over the last year or so. Stranded ships here, tech and personnel there. All this time—it was you?"

"That's right. Just because I was keeping my head down, didn't mean I was completely clueless. I had my feelers out there, keeping me up to speed on things. Was a bit tricky making sure that other version of me didn't find out, since he had his own feelers out there to give him advance warning of anyone coming after him."

"Right, right," I said distractedly, still digesting the fact that one of my more constant and reliable sources of intel was actually my dad. Well wonders never cease. "Why 'Orion'?" I asked.

"When I first contacted Bryce, I used one of those free extranet e-mail programs. There was an astronomy ad on the side showing random constellations. Orion just happened to be the one displayed when I was finishing my message."

The old adage about simplest answers came to mind, but not for long. I was only starting to appreciate what Dad had done. Once again he had tampered with time in an effort to change history. Rather than making a giant change, however, he'd settled for several smaller changes. Each change may not have had a huge immediate impact—other than the one sending me to Elysium and gifting me with that goddamn statue. But each had a trickle effect of consequences. The synergy of all those changes put together might've made one hell of a difference.

"Okay," I said. "So you convinced Bryce to send me to Elysium, thus making me a PR darling, making my life fairly miserable, but not as miserable as I would've been if Eli got his claws in me. And once the war started, you began sending me anonymous tips on people, ships and other things I might find of interest. Was that it? Was there anything else?"

"Yes: does the name Jien Garson ring any bells?"

"Nope. Who's Jien Garson?"

"A human billionaire renowned both for her eccentricity and philanthropy. One of her more ambitious undertakings was a project she founded in 2176 known as the Andromeda Initiative. It was conceived as a civilian, multi-species venture to send scientists, explorers and colonists on a one-way trip to explore the Andromeda Galaxy, establish a permanent presence and eventually establish a route between it and the Milky Way Galaxy."

"'To boldly go where no one has gone before'?" I quoted.

"Gene Roddenberry would be proud," Dad agreed.

"So what was the plan for this Initiative?" I asked. "Get on a ship, point her in the right direction and hope for the best?"

"Don't be silly. The Initiative made some initial attempts to find settlement sites by running asari astronomical surveys through predictive models. Then they got in touch with some quarian explorers who made a discovery near the edge of the Perseus Veil: three mass relays that the geth had linked together. In effect, they created what amounted as a FTL, long-range telescope. They had intended it to make observations and recordings of dark space beyond the galactic rim. Well, those records included several recent scans of the Andromeda Galaxy, scans that the Initiative predictive models deemed accurate. Using those records, the Initiative was able to identify several worlds for possible colonization. In 2185, the first wave of ships was launched for the Andromeda Galaxy, each holding thousands of volunteers in cryostasis for the long, long journey."

"That sounds amazing!" I marvelled. "Only, I don't remember hearing anything about it. Was it kept under wraps as part of some big conspiracy? Or is that where you came in?"

"That's where I came in," Dad confirmed. "You see, the scope of the Andromeda Initiative was matched only by its budget: the final cost was somewhere in the range of several quintillion credits."

A low whistle escaped my lips. "That's a lot of zeroes."

"Yup. So it might not surprise you to hear that Garson ran out of money. She was this close to calling it quits when a mysterious, anonymous benefactor called out of the blue and bailed her out."

"And this benefactor was… who?" I asked.

"Not entirely sure," Dad admitted. "I didn't have the time or resources to trace the call back—not without risking my own discovery. What I know for a fact was that this sponsor offered unlimited funding to get the Initiative launched… because of concerns of a looming threat to the galaxy itself."

"The Reapers."

"That was my guess. The benefactor wanted to preserve some portion of Milky Way civilization by sending all those colonists out of harm's way. As for the identity of the benefactor, I never found out for sure… but I suspect he or she may have had ties to Cerberus. Maybe it was their leader himself."

TIMmy secretly sponsoring the Andromeda Initiative? I could see him bankrolling the project if it was a human-only venture, but saving nonhumans too? I guess it was possible. You know, before he got it in his head to wage war against humans and nonhumans while the Reapers ran amok, all while secretly angling for a way to control them.

"So what changes did you make?" I finally asked.

"I just blocked any credit transfers from coming through," Dad shrugged. "Easy enough, when it was all done electronically over the extranet. As far as Garson was concerned, this 'benefactor' wound up being some fraud hoping to pull a fast one. And by the time he, or she, found an alternate way to pay her, she had developed suspicions as to his or her motivations—enough to refuse any 'aid' that was offered. In the end, the Andromeda Initiative was scrapped."

"Wow. That's… quite a change."

"I know. Maybe I don't have the right to drastically change all those thousands of lives. Especially when the prospect of exploring and colonizing a whole new galaxy sounded so exciting. But all I could think was that all the resources and technology that went into building those ships could have been used to build the Crucible and support the war effort. All those colonists who would have gone into cryostasis could have enlisted as soldiers or signed on to support them. All that money that was poured into such a deserving project could have been spent on crucial supplies that would undoubtedly make a real difference during the war. So… I made my choice."

"Couldn't have been an easy one to make," I told him. "What you did… you eliminated our last chance to preserve civilization as we know it if the Reapers win. But at the same time, you made all those people and tech and resources available when the war began. Which meant you doubled down on our one remaining roll of the dice to win the war and preserve civilization as we know it."

"That's the way I saw it," Dad nodded.

"You made the best choice you could," I said. "I'm… no stranger to that dilemma."

We both knew I was thinking of the destruction of the Bahak system, and a hundred decisions made before and after that fateful day.

"Were there any other changes you made?" I asked.

"Yeah. The second, and last, trip I took with the time machine was to Ilos—in the year 2184."

"Ilos—you were trying to complete some kind of time loop," I blurted out. "A paradox or whatever. You travelled there, knowing that there was one other version of yourself out there—the one who had fled one step ahead of Alliance Intelligence. You were making sure that that other past version would discover the time machine, try to make it work and basically start this whole time travel adventure all over again."

"Aces, Charles!" Dad applauded. "Aces!"

Hearing his signature line of praise again, after all this time, meant so much. I took a moment to savour it.

"But that left you with two years or so," I realized. "What did you do in the meantime?"

"Most of what happened was just keeping my head down and waiting. I had to make sure history played out more or less the way it did the first time. And, as you said, there was another version of me out there. I knew he would be busy getting the time machine running again, but I didn't want to risk doing anything that would make him curious and start looking for me. So I found a nice, quiet, secluded patch of land on Ilos and waited. It wasn't easy eking out a living, but I managed to establish a routine that helped to pass the time. Once the Reapers invaded, I began sending you—what did you call it? Tidbits of intel?—to help you build the Crucible and further support the war effort. One last series of subtle changes to help make things better. And finally, I sent you one last e-mail, carefully timed so you would arrive the same day and time that my past self activated the time machine. The rest… you already know."

I leaned back in my seat and exhaled. "I… I don't know what to say."

Dad nodded sympathetically. "I don't blame you, Charles. In fact, I think it's time I gave you a break. You need a chance to think about everything I told you and let it sink in. But before you do that…"

He got to his feet, pulled something out of his pocket, and handed it to me. It was an OSD. "What's this?" I asked.

"A log entry that somehow got uploaded onto my omni-tool. From Williams."

Ash?

"I played the first couple seconds, enough to know it was meant for you," Dad said. "So I think I'll leave you two alone now," Dad said.

He patted me on the shoulder and left the room.

Slowly, I stood up and made my way to my computer. I inserted the OSD and accessed the log entry embedded inside. Ash appeared on the screen. She was dressed in a plain grey hardsuit, one sporting a lot of wear and tear. But all that damage paled to the horrific burns and scars that disfigured half of her face. She looked like some gender-swapped version of Two-Face, if Two-Face was an Alliance soldier.

Despite that grim, forbidding appearance, she smiled at me. Or did the best she could. _"Hi, Shepard,"_ she said. _"I don't have much time, so listen up. Fifteen years ago, you rescued me from Eden Prime. I stood by you through thick and thin, fought and bled beside you, fell in love with you. I was there when you made so many choices because of what you saw... but I was also there when you made so many mistakes because of what you didn't—what you_ couldn't _—see. I might not have realized that back then, but I do now. And if you're watching this now, if you're hearing me now, then that means that all of that's changed._

" _All I ask is two things. First, keep an eye on my family. The Williams are a proud, strong and stubborn bunch who can look after themselves. But I'm hoping you can watch out for them, and be there for them if they really need you._

" _And second… give your dad a hug for me. He gave me faith and hope when I needed it most, and for that I'm eternally grateful._

"' _Two roads diverged in a wood and I… I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.'"_

Ash managed to pull that scarred face of hers into a genuine smile. _"Gotta go, Shepard."_

And then she was gone. Leaving me with those famous last lines from Robert Frost's poem. Because she knew I wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

The next day, I got in touch with Mom. It took some doing, but apparently one of the perks of being a hero with diplomatic and Spectre authority is that you can burn right through red tape and bureaucracy. She was a little mystified when I insisted she set up a private encrypted communications channel in her personal quarters and clear her schedule for the rest of the day, but all that passed when she saw Dad. Suffice it to say that there was a lot of shouting and crying, often at the same time.

After that, contacting Admiral Hackett was a breeze by comparison. He was pleasantly surprised to hear I had found a computer genius and engineering expert for the Crucible Project. He was shocked to hear that that man was my long-last father. I gave him a truthful, albeit very much abbreviated, explanation: that he had gone on the run from Alliance Intelligence out of fears that they would misuse his research, and had finally come out of hiding because he appreciated the threat the Reapers posed to our very existence. I skipped all the time travel stuff, both because he didn't have the time—no pun intended—to listen to the full unabridged version of events and because my parents and I weren't sure if it was anybody's business. Bottom line: Hackett dispatched a ship to rendezvous with the Normandy and pick up Dad—after giving his personal guarantee that he would make it clear to Triple-D and the rest of those Alliance Intelligence goons that Dad was off-limits—and that Hackett would take it very personally if anything were to happen to him.

While he waited for the transport to arrive, Dad sent his research to his colleagues to academia and various contacts in the Alliance, just to emphasize that weaponizing greybox research was a dead end and that everyone would be much better served if he was left in peace to work on the Crucible Project. He also offered a few tips and suggestions to improve the Normandy's systems, not to mention several extensive software patches for Delta Source.

The last thing he did was sit down with me for one more meal. Just the two of us. Father and son, united at last. And what was the main course, you ask?

Pancakes.


End file.
